


the belonging you seek

by delia-pavorum (literaryminded)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: (not like that), Angst, Awkward Even in Modern AUs, Because you KNOW these two are virgins, Ben Finally Gets That BJ (sort of), Ben Solo Finally Gets the Blow Job He's Been Waiting For in the Reylo Fandom, But She Can't Help Herself, Canon-Compliant sometimes, Choose Your Own Reylo Adventure (sort of), Cockteasery (like tomfoolery but smuttier), Collection of Prompt Fills, Come for the Reylo Stay For the Quantum Physics Analogies, Dancing, Do You Blame Her?, Domesticity, Drunk-dialing, Edging, F/M, First Timers (with each other), Fluff, Inappropriate Use of Phasma, Lingerie, Little to no semblance of plot, Masquerade-esque, Modern AU sometimes, One Night Stands with Feelings, Oral Sex, Rey Gives No Fucks, Rey Has Lots of Feelings (Some Bad), Reylo babies, See Each Chapter for More Tags, Sexting, Sexual Frustration, Teacher-Student Relationship, The Question is Purposely Ambiguous, They wear masks ok??, This Ain't Rey & Ben's First (Sexual) Rodeo, Virginity Loss, WE ARE A PRO-OXFORD COMMA FAMILY, angsty fluff, daddy!ben, in canon, parental woes, sometimes might change to mostly, sometimes smutty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-05-02 20:56:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 31,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum
Summary: He knew how it felt to be on the wrong side of history. To fight on the losing end of a war and, as time passed, to get further and further from your end goal. Like being swept out to sea in an undertow, powerless to fight against the raw strength of an entity so much more formidable than you.Yes. He knew that feeling well.A collection of one-shots and prompt fills, sometimes smutty. Very little plot development. Welcome to the trash can.





	1. birthday surprise

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, thanks for coming out. 
> 
> This "fic" is basically a dumpster for all my little ficlets, mainly from tumblr. Here I will post one-shots, prompt fills, stories I've written for others, and anything else that isn't a dedicated work meant for public consumption. 
> 
> Each chapter will have its own warnings/tags as necessary, so pay attention to this part at the beginning of each chapter, just in case. 
> 
> As always, if you like what you see, feel free to leave a comment or kudos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >   
> **prompt #89** : “When you said ‘birthday surprise’, this is not what I pictured…”
> 
> My very first prompt-fill and I chose it myself! (cut to image of me rowing a boat by myself with only one oar) 
> 
> Since this prompt, I've had quite a few requests (NOT only from myself, luckily) and continue to receive requests and I love you all muchly for encouraging me (enabling me) in this way. If you think you might be interested in sending me a prompt, feel free to do so [here](https://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com/post/175013803551/06182018-list-updated-with-prompt-15-the). 
> 
> Enjoy!!!! 
> 
> **Tags** : Modern AU Reylo, Established Relationship, Rey Tries to Cook

* * *

 “Shit, shit, shit shitshitshit _shit_ —” 

Rey hastily threw on the pair of oven mitts she’d found under the sink earlier that day (quite possibly left over from a previous tenant) and threw open the oven door, coughing when the acrid smoke that had been slowly filling up her kitchen now enveloped the room at an alarming rate. She frantically waved her hands in front of her face in violent swoops, trying to clear the air enough so she could see the inside of the stove and grab the incinerated remains of the meal she’d been trying to cook.

She grasped the roasting pan by both handles and yanked it out, before shouting in pain and surprise and dropping it with a clatter on the open door of the stove. She looked at her right hand, noticing for the first time a significant hole in the area where her fingers met her palms. Letting out a loud groan, she grabbed a dish towel from off the counter and used it to clutch the handle in her one hand while her other oven mitt actually did its job, allowing her to hoist the pan onto the top of the stove.

At this point the smoke detector had already started beeping because _of course it had_ – the blasted thing began shrieking every time you so much as looked at it funny – but Rey had to deal with the more pressing matter at hand: her ruined dinner.

She lifted the lid and peered inside. The chicken’s skin still appeared rubbery and under-cooked, and not the blackened crispy mess she was anticipating. Although, in hindsight, it did seem odd that it would have burnt so significantly in less than half an hour at 350 degrees.

Maybe it was the veggies?

She checked inside the stove again to see the broccoli and carrots on another baking sheet, also shiny and raw-looking and not at all burnt.

What in the hell—

Waving her hands to clear the last vestiges of smoke, she peered further into the stove until she saw the culprit: two pieces of broccoli and a handful of carrots at the bottom of her ancient oven, exhibiting the tell-tale features of Significantly Overdone (read: charred and unrecognizable) food. They must have fallen off the baking sheet when Rey hastily shoved it onto the rack as she attempted to stir the risotto simultaneously, since the recipe _insisted_ she do so every ten minutes – ‘effortless’ my ass, _Giada_ – and it had already been over thirty minutes at that point and she’d had to put in quite a bit of elbow grease to scrape the bottom of the saucepan—

Oh fuuuuck. The risotto.

She hesitantly lifted the lid of the pot to see the rice burbling its way to a slow and violent death, thick and goopy, more reminiscent of a lumpy under-done porridge than a rich and creamy risotto. She gave it a tentative stir and the entire contents moved in unison, like a sticky steamed rice, if steamed rice smelled like burnt starch and half of it had to be forcibly removed from the bottom of the pot, or perhaps even remained there, stuck, for all eternity—

“Mother _fuck_!” she yelped, as something sharp mercilessly pierced through the soft pad of her foot. She hobbled backwards until she could lean on the counter and then lifted up her leg to investigate. With a grimace, she pulled a small white shard out and watched the blood well up.

The culprit behind her initial distraction had been a butter-and-chocolate splattered floor and a shattered custard dish that had fallen when she thought it had been a good idea to transfer both custard bowls across the kitchen _on_ the baking sheet – “I’ve waitressed! I can do this! This is fine!” – and was proven wrong. She’d had to carefully pick around the area, cleaning up the slippery mess while also avoiding any shards of ceramic she may have missed (clearly there had been at least one). And that meant one lava cake was _ruined_ now, since she’d only had two small custard dishes to begin with and even the fact that she’d had _two_ had been a miracle of biblical proportions.

She let out a hysterical laugh, shrill and unstable even to her own ears, as the smoke detector continued to wail above her head.

The door to the apartment flew open and Ben stood there, suit rumpled from his commute, keys and blueprints in one hand, serviceable black lunch bag in the other.

“Jesus, Rey,” he said, coughing, as he entered.

She could just imagine the sight that greeted him:

An acrid haze of smoke still permeating the apartment. Chocolate- (and now blood-) streaked floors. On her limited counter space, in no particular order: mixing bowls, spoons, a cutting board with a partially cut-up block of chocolate on it, a separate cutting board with carrot peels and butts (that’s what the ends are called, yes? With the greenish bit? Butts? Bottoms?) and discarded broccoli pieces. Two different large chopping knives, tossed haphazardly, one currently teetering off the edge. Every herb and seasoning she owned (granted, there weren’t that many) laid out on the counter. All the detritus and wrapping that the chicken had come in from the butcher’s (I mean, she was _going_ to throw it out, just as soon as she finished). Of course, the pièce de résistance – a severely undercooked chicken, accompanied by equally undercooked vegetables, tossed onto the stove. Finally, the stove itself, door thrown wide open, the last smoky remnants of charred produce emanating from the bottom somewhere.

And Rey, in the middle of all of it, looking a complete mess. She was still wearing her skirt from work that day – her attempt at looking presentable to meet with the urban planners that were going to be hiring her architectural team to do work for them in the city centre. Day to day, her work outfit was usually a version of “dressed-down business casual”: pants that were comfortable, but could still pass as office-appropriate, and some sort of tank top/cardigan combination. That day, she had swapped the comfy pants for a pencil skirt, and her go-to cardi-top combo for a silky blouse, the latter of which she had discarded for an old t-shirt of Ben’s, and then covered up the whole thing with an old apron, perhaps also a relic of the previous tenant’s, or maybe even her previous roommate’s – Finn had been the cook out of the two of them, but since he’d moved out with Rose, she’d been left to her own devices mostly. Which involved a lot of stovetop and/or microwave cooking, take-out, and more recently, eating at Ben’s or with Ben.

Ben, who now stood in the entryway, slowly putting his things down, before approaching her like she was a feral animal – careful, no sudden movements. He reached up and barely needed to stretch his long body, extending a finger to the button on the smoke detector that would cease the infernal, ear-piercing beeps.

They were suddenly in blessed silence.

Rey looked up at him sheepishly. Ben spoke first.

“I gotta say.” He looked around, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “When you said ‘birthday surprise’, this is not what I pictured…”

Rey let out a half laugh and nodded, her eyes following his gaze for a moment, before she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

“Oh, baby, no!” Ben laughingly crooned as he gathered her into his arms. “No, no, no. This is perfect. Stop.”

“I just tried to do something nice!” she wailed into his chest. “But then the risotto stuck and the broccoli fell into the stove and the lava cake dropped and – all this smoke! And my hand and then my _foot_.” She sniffled and crossed her arms. “You can say it. I’m a bloody disaster.”

He kissed her head and cradled her jaw in his hands, tilting her head back so she could look up at him. His eyes warmly looked between her wet ones and then he kissed the tip of her nose. “ _Not_ a disaster,” he reassured her. He looked down in mild concern. “What happened to your hand and your foot?”

“I burnt it, because of that stupid oven mitt and then I stepped on a bit of the ceramic custard pot that smashed,” she grumbled, leaning forward into his dress shirt and unabashedly wiping her nose on his shoulder. He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, chuckling to himself.

“Alright then.” He bent over and heaved her into his arms, cradling her against his broad chest.

“Ben!” she squealed as he carried her out of the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“We’re going to take a look at those injuries, then we’re going to clean out the oven, get the chicken and veggies back in there, and finish cooking so we have for lunch and dinner tomorrow. Before we do that, we’ll order Thai.”

“Mmm, sounds perfect.” She pressed a kiss onto his jaw. “Happy Birthday,” she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder.

He looked down at her with a soft smile. “It is, isn’t it?”


	2. same old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > @newerconstellations: Ooooh…I’ll take a steaming hot NSFW #66 “count to ten, and open your eyes” to go with a side of #68 “if you don’t do it, I will,” pretty please!!!
> 
> This one’s for you, [@newerconstellations](http://newerconstellations.tumblr.com) (and anyone else that’s interested in some Reylo modern au lingerie smooooot [smut])  
> 
> **Tags** : Girl Chat, Domesticity/Complacency, "Married" Sex, Lingerie Kink, Oral Sex, Regular Sex 
> 
> Enjoy, you filthy animals!

* * *

Nobody would say that the sex had gotten _boring_ , per se.

It hadn’t. Of course it hadn’t. They still had the same volatile chemistry they’d had since the beginning. The one that set them off for long, luxurious all-night sessions and explosive quickies in semi-public places. They tried new things. They experimented. They were vocal about likes and dislikes, kinks and fantasies.

Boring wasn’t the word.

…But maybe there was a bit of complacency.

Maybe there was a bit of, let’s pull down your sweatpants and I’ll pull down my sweatpants, and we’ll do the thing, and oh, _fuck,_ that was good, now let’s keep watching that outdoor cooking guy on Chef’s Table because I like what he did with the fish in the dirt.

It’s possible there was a bit of that.

And one day, Rey was talking with her friend Rose, who became her friend after Rose started dating her _really_ good friend Finn. And, since Rey still saw Finn as a bit of a brother, and didn’t really want to hear much about their sex life or the ways Rose was looking to improve it, and made that known to Rose in the sometimes-blunt way she had of saying things, this gave Rose a golden opportunity. An opportunity she didn’t get that often. And opportunity to say:

“Well, how about you and Ben, then?”

Rey froze, half-chewed burger lodged in the side of her mouth, another bite thwarted in mid-air as Rose’s question stopped her dead. It took some effort to chew the bite she already had in her mouth and then ask, as nonchalantly as possible, “What about me and Ben?”

“I mean, _what about you and Ben_ ,” Rose insisted, with a poke. “How do you guys keep things fresh and new? It’s been, what, five years now?”

“Six,” Rey mumbled, annoyed that her comprehensive enjoyment of her burger had been ruined, even as she took another huge bite.

“Right, six.” Rose picked at her fries. “So, like, don’t you find things get a bit…stale after awhile? Like, same old, same old?”

Rey shrugged. “Not really. I mean, things are still…” She waved her hand vaguely, searching for the word. “Like, good. Really good.”

“Right, right, of course.” A pause. “Like, _good-how-it-was-in-the-beginning_ good?”

The question made Rey pause, too, before she answered honestly. “Yeah. Yeah, like that good. Better, sometimes. Because it’s the best when you know the other person and you no longer spend that awkward undetermined amount of time trying to figure out whether or not you can do, like, a finger up the butt or whatever—”

“ _Rey_!” Rose squealed, throwing a fry at her while Rey cackled and took another bite of her burger.

The girls ate in silence for a few minutes. After they had gotten up to throw away their garbage and start to leave the food court, Rose spoke up again.

“Do you think Ben feels the same way?”

Rey was busy crunching the ice from her fountain pop before tossing it in the recycling section of the garbage bins to catch what Rose meant. “About what? The—?” Rather than say, she gestured by pointing her first finger upwards and doing a little back-and-forth twist.

Rose slapped her hand down, laughing. “God, no, stop it, you pervert. I mean about things being better. Don’t you worry sometimes _he_ might be bored?”

Rey’s chuckle immediately died on her lips.

Truth be told, she _hadn’t_ thought about it. She just figured he’d had no cause for complaint. Sure, things had slowed down a bit in the bedroom as of late, what with him working longer hours and even sometimes on weekends – hence her and Rose’s Saturday mall excursion – and Rey trying to keep up with work and house stuff to pick up the slack, before they usually met somewhere on the couch after 9:00 PM, and fell asleep shortly thereafter. But things were still _fine_. They were good!

Weren’t they?

Rey brought herself to ask: “What did you have in mind?”

Rose’s grin stretched from ear to ear.

~~~

Hours later, Rey was already tucked into bed when Ben finally arrived home. She heard him enter, drop his keys in the bowl by the front door, and sigh wearily. His shoes made twin thudding sounds as he kicked them off, before she heard him walk into the kitchen.

Rey burrowed deeper into the covers, her heart pounding nervously now that her plan had been called into action. What would he think? Would he be interested—well, of course he’s _interested_ , she admonished herself, but would he be down? Or too tired? Or think it was foolish—?

Shaking her head to clear her anxious thoughts, she instead got up out of bed and cinched the robe’s belt around her body tighter, trying not to think about what she was wearing underneath. She softly padded out of the bedroom and across the hall, meeting him in the kitchen in short order. When they had moved out of their apartment a couple years back, they had found a nice, three-bedroom bungalow just on the outskirts of the city. It suited them well, though it meant a longer commute for Ben.

“Hi,” she greeted him, standing up on tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Hi,” he said back after swallowing the drink of water he’d just taken. He turned his head to plant a soft kiss on her lips. “How was your day?”

“Fine.” She shrugged. “Just killed some time at the mall with Rose. How about you?”

He shook his head as he took another gulp of water. “Busy. Crazy. Snoke is riding my ass again and Hux is reveling in it. I haven’t done this much research on fucking torts since law school.” He shook his head again. “Anyway, I’m out of there now. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He put his glass in the sink and loosened his tie. “I’m going to get changed and just crash. I’m so fucking beat.” He started to brush past her and out of the kitchen.

“Oh—” The sound came out involuntarily, but it stopped him and he turned back to her.

“What?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

“Uhhh,” she stammered, avoiding his gaze.

Her hesitation caused him to peer at her more closely, perhaps actually seeing her for the first time – barefoot, in a pink terrycloth robe she rarely takes out let alone wears. (She didn’t think to _also_ purchase a sexy robe, because honestly, there’s no bloody _guidebook_ about this sort of thing is there?)

“What—?” He took another step towards her and squinted. “Do you have a ribbon around your neck?”

She fiddled with the ribbon in question nervously. “Erm. Maybe.”

He cocked his head and looked at her quizzically. “Uh… why?”

_Okay, Rey. It’s now or never. Just do it. DO IT._ “Close your eyes,” she blurted out.

His brows draw in. “What?”

“Just close your eyes!” It came out shriller than she intended it to, but thankfully he obliged with only a quirk of his eyebrow. “Now count to ten and then you can open them.”

His eyes snapped back open. “Rey, what are you—”

“Please,” she implored him, “just trust me.”

He gave her a Look, but sighed. “Fine.” His eyes dropped closed again. “One… two…”

_Okay_. Gathering up the last vestiges of her courage, she untied the knot on her robe. She took a deep bracing breath, then shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it pool around her feet. At that point, she had all of three seconds to come up with a sexy pose, then two seconds, then she panicked and just let her hands hang at her sides, resisting the urge to wring them or cross them over her chest.

“—Ten.” He opened his eyes.

~~~

Ben was tired, his head swimming with torts law, and a slow-burning undercurrent of anger towards his boss and colleague. He wanted to change out of the suit it felt like he’d been wearing for the last four days and lie in his underwear in his warm, soft bed, with his warm, soft girlfriend snuggled up next to him, and maybe watch a show or read a page from a book or—

Instead, he was standing in his kitchen, with said girlfriend behaving like she had a secret or a nervous condition or some sort of announcement to make and now she wanted him to close his eyes and count—?

But, since he was soft as shit when it came to refusing her anything, he dutifully obliged.  

“—Ten.” He opened his eyes. And then immediately closed them again. And opened them. Did a quick double blink. He had to physically restrain himself from cartoonishly bringing his fists up and rubbing his eyes to ensure that the sight before him was, in fact, real.

Rey. Naked – no, not naked. In an ensemble that he couldn’t have envisioned in his wildest fantasies. A black lacy concoction with a bra top, see-through enough that he could see the outline of dark nipples, and lace that came down and criss-crossed over her toned belly and around the back. Around her neck was a ribbon, like a choker, that seemed to be attached to the halter neck of the bra and then came down the centre of her body until just above her navel, where it branched out around her waist and then down her stomach, finally attaching to the scrap of black lace that he _assumed_ were meant to be the panties, but they certainly didn’t do the word justice.

He realized he’d been wordlessly staring at her, mouth agape for what probably felt like forever, because she had started to get fidgety and the blush that had never fully left her cheeks started to creep over her nose and down her neck.

At this point, he had three inclinations, each of which felt as natural as the other. One, was to let out a nervous laugh and ask her what she was doing (he had a feeling this wouldn’t go over too well). The second was to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder, caveman-style, and carry her straight to the bedroom, before tearing the scraps of lace and string off and having his way with her ( _may_ get a slightly better reception). The third was to take charge in a different way.

He went with Option C.

He consciously made the effort to change his face from slack-jawed wonder to a slow, deliberate perusal. He saw her swallow as she picked up on the shift in demeanour.

“Turn around,” he demanded in a low voice, not even needing to affect the rasp in his tone.

She quirked an eyebrow, but lifted up on her tippy-toes, showing off toned calves, as she spun in a slow circle.

His mouth went dry as he saw the back, a criss-cross of strings and lace, with a bow that tied right in the centre, ribbons dangling over the dimples above her lush ass.

“Come here,” he said, still in a voice that brooked no room for argument.

She strode to him, making no attempt to moderate her pace for the sake of sultriness – no half-measures for his girl.

“Is this for me?” he asked, tucking his finger underneath the taut ribbon bisecting her belly, and moving it up and down, his knuckle stroking her flesh softly.

She bit her lip and looked up at him, nodding.

No longer able to resist, he brought his hands up to card through her loose hair and crashed his mouth down on hers, swooping his tongue in to lick at hers. One hand left her head and coasted down her body to tangle in the ribbons crossing over her ass. He gave a squeeze of appreciation once he arrived there, then took a second to detangle his hand, before pulling away entirely.

She stumbled into him slightly, not expecting him to pull back so suddenly. He played with the ribbons trussing her up, pulling and tugging to see where they had any give. His breath got shallow at the sight of her like this, criss-crossed and tied up, wrapping like a present, just for him. _God, he loved her._ He pulled her close and stroked her jaw with the back of his hands, before pulling her to him and kissing her thoroughly once more.

Coasting his hands down her back and over her bottom, he tucked them underneath her thighs and lifted her. She hopped up with an appreciative moan and wrapped her legs around his waist. Carrying her as if she weighed nothing, he took them both to the bedroom before sitting down on the edge of the bed with her on his lap, only breaking his lips from hers to trail kisses down her neck and jaw.

“Ben… Ben…” she moaned. “Take this thing off of me.”

He nodded, just as heated, as she ground down on his straining erection. He went to untie the bow in the back and remove the bralette, but it was stuck around her neck. His large fingers fumbled with the tiny clasp at the back but he couldn’t quite get it. Instead, he tugged at the ribbons criss-crossing over her back and around her front, trying to pull them down so she could get her legs out. They barely budged. Both Rey and Ben paused and looked down.

“It’s okay—” “It’s fine—” They both started talking simultaneously, before bringing their lips together again. He wrapped his hands around the ribbons attached to the panties and tugged her over him, back and forth, so she could grind on him further. Almost immediately, she developed a pace on her own.

“Off, off,” she mumbled against his lips as she unbuttoned his dress shirt. He helped and in short order, they had removed the dress shirt and the short sleeve white tee underneath. He fell backwards on the bed, lying flat on his back and she undid his belt buckle and lifted slightly so she could push off his pants. He kicked them off and then grabbed the ribbon going down the centre of her body and used it to tug her towards him. Since the ribbon around her neck was attached, it caused her upper body to be tugged down as well, and he could feel himself getting even harder at the idea of her at his mercy in that way.

Using the ribbons, he pulled down and to the side, causing her to flip over onto her back and he followed immediately after, thrusting his boxer-clad cock against her soft centre. He kissed his way down her chest, moving the bralette aside to take a rock-hard nipple into his mouth while his other hand plucked and toyed with the other.

She moaned loudly, tunneling her fingers through his hair, holding him there. He disentangled himself from her fingers and kissed his way down her body until he got to the lace-covered apex of her thighs.

“Take it off,” she groaned. “Tear it off. I don’t care. If you don’t do it, I will.”

He chuckled, his mouth puffing hot air directly onto her clit and she moaned and squirmed. Instead of obeying her command, he moved the lace scrap to the side and licked between her inner lips, tasting her arousal.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned loudly, using his fingers to spread her open and his other hand to move her wetness up and around her clit and all over. “You’re so fucking wet for me, always.”

“Ben,” she keened. “Put your mouth on me, put your fingers in me, please, please.”

He obliged, sucking her clit into his mouth and putting two fingers inside her simultaneously. She was so slick, so ready for him, her body accepting his hand like a suction. He could feel her contracting already and he had barely even done anything. He crooked his fingers up and steadied them so that she could grind on him, find the pressure she needed. He laved her clit with delicate strokes and then stronger ones, sucking and even lightly grazing his teeth over it. In short order, her body was arching and he could feel her hot inner walls get slicker as they throbbed over his fingers.

“Ah–ahhh…!” She came on a gasp, her thighs crushing his ears to his head.

He pulled back and tore his boxers and socks off – she had gone to the effort of exquisite lingerie, the least he could do is take off his goddamn black work socks – then he lay back down on the bed, grabbed hold of the ribbons criss-crossing over her lower body again and yanked her languid form up and over him.

She was slow-moving, still coming down for her orgasm, but she propped herself up and moved the lace aside once more. Together, they fitted his cock into her entrance and she sank down on him in one fluid motion.

They both moaned simultaneously. _Nothing_ compared to the feeling of being inside her. She began rocking back and forth and he could have come just from looking at her: hair in tousled waves, head thrown back, neck and chest spotty and red from his kisses and bites, her breasts spilling out overtop the lace of the bralette, nipples dark and rosy and hard. He tangled his hands in the ribbons, one at her hips, the other tugging again at the one in the middle, holding her steady as he thrust up into her.

She jerked her hips in time with his thrusts and brought her hands up to pluck at her own nipples, moaning loudly as she found pleasure and gave pleasure simultaneously.

The sight of her trussed up, riding him, playing with her own tits – it was too much. On a strangled moan, his hips jerked up one last time and his fingers dug into her hips, grinding her to a halt on his cock as he came. She involuntarily jerked, her hands falling to brace onto his shoulders, toes curling on either side of his thighs as she came as well, crying out for a second time. After a beat, she collapsed onto his chest, still holding him inside of her, and he softly stroked her hair back with a shaky hand.

“That was—” He puffed out a breath, trying to control his rapid heartbeat. “Fucking amazing.”

“Mmm,” she purred her agreement, nestling into him further. He could feel their shared fluids trickling down his balls, making a mess of the sheets, but he made no attempt to move and neither did she.

He hesitated before asking his next question. “What was all this?” he wondered, running his hands over and under the ribbons on her back.

She looked up at him, alert. “Do you not like it?”

“No!” he said loudly. Too loudly. _Cool it, Solo._ “No,” he repeated, moderating his tone. “I love it. You look—Rey.” He made her look in his eyes. “I _love_ it. Just wondering where it came from, that’s all. Last I checked, my birthday already passed.” He quirked a smile at her.

“I just thought…” she shrugged, still not meeting his gaze. “I just thought maybe we needed this.”

A thought occurred to him. “Are you not…satisfied? Like, should we be doing more? Should _I_ be doing more?”

She was already shaking her head. “No! I’m totally satisfied. I think things are great. Even when it’s quick and we go back to watching whatever on TV. Even though you’ve been busy lately and we haven’t been doing it as much. Like, I mean, that’s life. I get it. I just thought maybe you were…” Her voice trailed off and she mumbled something under her breath.

“That I was what?” he asked, warily.

“I dunno,” she continued in a mumble. “Bored?”

“Bor—” He looked at her, aghast. “ _Bored_? Are you _nuts_? Rey, you are—when we—I’ve never—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “I am _definitely_ not bored. Every time with you is beyond amazing. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

She nodded, with a placated smile on her face. “Okay, good. I knew Rose was probably full of shit. But this was fun, yeah?”

He let his head fall back as he chuckled. “Uh, yeah. I’d say so.” He gave her ass a playful slap. “Now get up so we can get cleaned up and maybe watch the next episode of Chef’s Table. The new season is all about _pastries_.”

“Oooh!” she squealed, disentangling herself from him and hobbling to the bathroom, coltish and unsteady thanks to her two orgasms and also in an attempt to keep from getting their mess on the floor.

A thought occurred to him as he followed her towards the bathroom. “What did you say to Rose to get her involved in all this?”

“Nothing!” her voice came from inside. “I told her things were still really good, but then she implied that maybe _you_ were bored and that’s what got me thinking.”

He nodded and opened his mouth to reply, when she continued speaking again—

“Oh, I also may have told her about—” Her hand appeared in the open doorway and she held out her pointer finger, moving it back-and-forth in a twisting motion.

“ _Rey!_ ”


	3. flesh and blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS ASKED: 59.“Why are you hiding behind me? What did you do this time?”
> 
> This one took an angst-y turn and was initially inspired by [@cosmo-gonika](http://cosmo-gonika.tumblr.com)‘s speculation re: Ep IX. Then, it all spun out of control with the Reddit “leaks” and further speculation and, anyway, this is what you get when my brain explodes. 
> 
> **Tags** : Canon(?)-Compliant, Based on Ep IX Speculation, Potential Ep IX Spoilers (but I doubt it), ANGST

* * *

The voices droned on around him as he allowed his mind to wander.

It was easy enough to feign interest or the barest amount of attentiveness. A well-placed nod, a cool, fixed look. He had achieved much success over the years in allowing others to believe they were in charge, while only he truly held the reins. 

Yes, much success. In many areas.

He fixated on his leather clad hand, watching as it slowly curled into a fist, almost of its own volition.

Many areas. Except for the one that counted.

They called him a benevolent leader. Some even touted him as the ‘saviour of the galaxy’. Many followed willingly after seeing the benefits that would arise from doing so and appreciating that the punishments to the contrary were no longer so severe. Some even disparaged those who would think to resist – ‘Extremists’, they called them. ‘Self-serving fundamentalists.’ The Resistance had lost its rosy hue in the eyes of the people. Too fanatical now to be commonplace. Rebels in a universe where rebellion was unnecessary.

Kylo Ren sympathized, truly he did. He knew how it felt to be on the wrong side of history. To fight on the losing end of a war and, as time passed, to get further and further from your end goal. Like being swept out to sea in an undertow, powerless to fight against the raw strength of an entity so much more formidable than you.

Yes. He knew that feeling well.

He turned a baleful eye onto the standing, sermonizing form of General Hux, datacron open and projecting yet another galaxy map over the long, duraglass table. Kylo sat at the head, while other generals, admirals, and captains of the First Order occupied the other seats along the length.

Another speech, glorifying the First Order. Exalting the work they had done. Reveling in the planets they had converted. Extolling the virtues of their regime. Condemning and deriding the continued existence of the Resistance, pitiful as it was. “Not for much longer,” they promised each other. “Not for much longer.”

Kylo had to agree, but it left a sour pit in the bottom of his stomach. They didn’t know. None of them did. There was more to the Resistance than the meagre remains of a rebellion. Than the ashes of its predecessors. Something buried in its depths. Something there that mattered.

More than anything else.

As if on cue, he felt the infinitesimal shift in the air. The scattering of ions, the rippling of space and time. Sound muting, as if sucked into a vacuum.

_No_ , he thought, even as his heart soared. _Not now._ His eyes surreptitiously scanned the room, though his expression divulged nothing.

Then he heard it, coming from his left, beelining towards his chair.

He resisted the urge to turn around, instead clenching his jaw until his teeth ground together and keeping his curled fists on the glass in front of him.

The noise came closer.

Suddenly, his chair titled backwards abruptly. He had to move with the motion, acting as though he were simply leaning back into a more comfortable position. He could feel the erratic thuds of scrambling and kicking feet, with the minute sound of a struggle, clear in its grunts and sharp exhales. A weight settled heavily on the back of his seat, close to the top where his head peaked over slightly. He could feel warm breath on his ear. Still, he could not risk looking behind him, even though every fibre of his being screamed at him to _turn around_ —

“Oh, hi, papa.”

His lips twitched involuntarily.

“ _Hey_ …hi,” the little voice whispered once more.

The mechanics of the Force Bond were difficult for a four-year-old to understand fully. Even an adult could have trouble comprehending that there was a room full of people who could neither see nor hear them. The little one understood well enough that she likely would not be seen by others, but, moreso, she understood that she wasn’t _allowed_ to be seen. That was why she tended to lower her voice, affecting a four-year-old’s understanding of a whisper (typically just a slightly quieter version of her normally boisterous tone) during the moments when she caught him with other people.

He cleared his throat and shifted slightly in his seat. He made a movement, bringing his right hand over his left shoulder like he was adjusting his cape, and furtively wiggled his pointer finger near his ear. It successfully made contact with a tiny nose and he was rewarded with a giggle. His centre of gravity shifted again with the movement of his chair and he looked down to see five little toes attached to a small foot land in his lap. The foot was attached to a leg, followed by a torso, followed by two gangly arms and a tousled head of dark black curls hiding a cherubic face, but not quite hiding the tips of two perfect, shell-like ears, slightly too big for such a tiny head.

His daughter looked up at him then and his breath caught, like it always did.

_I don’t see you enough,_ he thought ruefully. _My beautiful girl_.

She looked bigger since the last time he had seen her, only a week prior. He knew it was likely impossible, but it still felt like he had missed something, that he was missing _so much_ —

“Supreme Leader?” a nasally voice interrupted his perusal of his daughter’s freckles as she smiled up at him, dimples and gapped baby teeth prominent. She may have his ears and hair, possibly even his lanky form, but her face was purely her mother’s. Toothy, fresh, dimpled, freckled, and sweet. A ray of sunshine.

They both turned to look at Hux, who was glaring over his nose at Kylo expectantly.

“That will be all, General.” Kylo’s words held a finality to them. The man knew, very well, that he was being dismissed.

Still, he spluttered, colour raising from his neck towards his face. “But—you didn’t address my concerns regarding—”

“I said—” Kylo pointedly shifted so he sat tall in his seat and his daughter mimicked the action, glaring coolly at the general in an imitation of her father. “—we are finished here.”

Hux glowered at him, his ire emanating from his body with every second that passed. Still, a rabid cur, even barely tamed, knew its place. “Very well,” he clipped. “We will continue this discussion at a later date.” With that, he clicked the datacron closed abruptly, the room once again taking on the tepid glow of its regular lighting rather than the ethereal radiance of the holo, then turned sharply on his heel and stalked out. The others followed in short order, most unwilling to make even the briefest eye contact with him as they scattered. Once the last subordinate had left, Kylo relaxed into his seat and smiled down at the little girl in his arms, finally able to fold her up against his body and press her head into his chest. He kissed her tousled curls as he held her close.

“Hello, my girl,” he rumbled. “Why were you hiding behind me earlier? What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

“Nothing, papa, I swear it!” came the innocent reply, an angelic face belying the true nature of mischief that lurked beneath the surface.

“Eliana Reya Solo!”

As always, Kylo’s heart leapt at his daughter’s full name. Meaning ‘gift’ and ‘queen’, he found it so fitting that she should have those names; and to be named for her mother as well as her father, a symbol of the good they could do when brought together.

They had both heard the echoing voice before the body manifested. Of course, the bond had remained open and, as such, the ones who were capable of using it had access to its passageways. This meant—

Yes. There she was.

Rey appeared out of the corner of his eye like an avenging angel, striding limbs and flowing hair. Her true origin remained a mystery, but soon she was standing before him as though she were there in flesh and blood. And, for all intents and purposes, she was.

_Ah, but they knew that well, didn’t they?_

She frowned at the two of them, arms crossed, jaw ticking.

“ _Eliana_ ,” she scolded, “you know you’re not supposed to do this.” She refused to look directly at Kylo. “It’s not safe.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Kylo retorted, offended. As if he would let anything happen—

“It’s _not_ ,” Rey insisted, meeting his eyes for the first time, a wealth of weariness and sadness behind the hazel irises. “We still don’t know the mechanics of it all. If she gets _seen_ somehow, or stuck, or ends up somewhere where she shouldn’t, with neither you or I there to protect her—” She broke off, shaking her head, overcome. “It’s too risky,” she said finally.

He sighed, suddenly exhausted. His daughter looked between the two of them, eyes wide.

“And also, little miss,” Rey continued, softening her tone, crouching lower to be eye-level with the little girl in Kylo’s lap, “You can’t just use your papa as an escape every time you know you’re going to get in trouble. Those staffs weren’t for you to play with. They aren’t toys.”

“I just wanted one,” came the return grumble in a little voice. “To train with you, mama.”

Rey’s expression softened further and the corners of her mouth deepened in a frown. “I know, baby. And I’m sorry I’m so busy.”

“Maybe,” Kylo spoke up, before really considering his words, “maybe she can stay here for a bit—?”

“Ben.” Rey closed her eyes on an exhale and shook her head as their daughter chirped with glee and Kylo realized his tactical error.

“Yes! Yes!” she cried, throwing her arms around her father’s neck. “Can I please? Can I stay with papa for a bit? And mama, you stay, too! And we can all stay together, in one place, the way we belong.”

Kylo’s gaze met Rey’s over their daughter’s head, his expression ravaged, Rey’s eyes already swimming with unshed tears.

“Soon, my love,” Kylo whispered against dark curls. “Soon we’ll be all together, the way we belong.” He repeated her words back to her, like a mantra.

Eliana pulled away with a pout. “That’s what you always say. Soon, soon. _Soon_ takes too long! I’m already _four-years-old_ , papa!”

Kylo flinched like he’d been hit by a blaster. “I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m sorry, I—” His voice cracked and Rey abruptly turned around and walked a few steps away from them. Kylo could see her shoulders shudder briefly. “I wish things could be different. Could work faster. But your mama and I, we’re trying. We’re trying to get our family together again. I promise you that. You just have to wait a bit longer.”

Eliana heaved out a sigh with the level of exasperation only a four-year-old could manage. “Fine. But only _a bit_ longer, got it?”

Kylo let out a chuckle, even as he looked up and willed his tears to dry. “Got it, my girl. You go with your mama now, okay? I’ll come see you soon. Don’t try and come to me again, alright? Mama is right, it’s not safe enough. Let me come see you instead. Promise?”

“I promise, papa!” Eliana wrapped her small, sinewy arms around her father’s neck and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, papa. And I miss you all the time,” she added, in the innocently gut-wrenching way only a child is capable of, wrapping her arms tighter around him and burying her face in his neck.

He choked back a sob and hugged her back tightly, closing his eyes and breathing in her scent. His baby. His sweet girl. Getting bigger each day – and him, not around to see it. Just like his father before him. A shudder ran through his entire body with the effort to keep from breaking down.

He felt a gentle, but firm hand on his shoulder. Slowly he looked up to catch Rey’s watery eyes with his own.

She gave him a small, sad smile. _Soon._

He nodded, not sure if either of them really believed it. Kissing his daughter a final time on one of her perfect ears, he relinquished his hold on her.

Rey hoisted her into her own arms and moved back as the little girl steadied herself in her mother’s hold.

“Bye, papa,” she said glumly, resting her head on Rey’s shoulder.

“Bye, my girl,” he rasped, touching his fingers to his lips. “My girls.” He looked at Rey.

Her lips quivered and she looked away.

“Be safe,” he whispered, looking at her pleadingly.

She nodded. “Always.” She glanced down at her daughter, then around the room, as though someone was waiting to burst out of the shadows and catch them unawares. Finally, she looked up at Kylo.

He knew that look.

He stood as she met him in two strides and he wrapped his arms around her, around them both, and Rey tangled one hand into his hair and they held their daughter between them as their lips met in a scorching kiss, tongues stroking, teeth clacking, tasting like joy and sorrow and heartbreak and hope.

And over too soon.

Kylo allowed Rey to pull back and she settled back down to the flats of her feet. He stole one more kiss, a soft one, this one conveying security and familiarity, a “see you soon” or a “goodnight”. The little comforts that they had yet to be afforded, but that they hoped, someday, they could look forward to.

Adjusting Eliana in her arms once more, she took a few stumbling steps back and closed her eyes. Kylo knew she was preparing to close the bond, knew that she had some power in controlling it, just as he did now.

“I love you,” he blurted out, before she could disappear. “I miss you. God, I miss you.”

Her eyes snapped open as twin tears streaked down her cheeks in unison.

And then they were gone.


	4. the prayers of the nonbelievers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >  
>> 
>> _[Reylo Week 2018](http://reylo-week-2018.tumblr.com), **Day 3 Prompt** : Wounds_  
> 
> 
> I feel like I should include a few trigger warnings. They are:  
>  \- Mass Violence  
>  \- Violence Against Women  
>  \- Terrorism/Like Terrorism  
>  \- Vehicular Violence  
>  \- Victims and Survivors of Violence  
>  \- Survivor's Guilt 
> 
> That said, this story does not explicitly convey any of this violence, but the warnings are there nonetheless.

* * *

Ben didn’t think anything of it when noon rolled around.

Rey was notoriously late, sometimes even 15 or 20 minutes after a scheduled meeting time. He just continued reading his book, an old favourite, and waited patiently. When the clock on his phone turned to 12:15, however, he started to notice. Half an hour was a bit much, even for her, and he knew she had work at 2:00, so she wouldn’t have cut their time short if she could help it.

Still, he assumed she’d gotten held up - or perhaps she’d taken the subway only to encounter some sort of delay, as was wont to happen with transit in the city (particularly when one was in a rush.)

This is why, when he selected her name under the Favourites section of his phone and her cell rang and rang and rang, he thought, _ah maybe she doesn’t have service._

At 12:30 he tried again, and her cell rang and rang and rang.

And he thought, _if she didn’t have service, wouldn’t it go straight to voicemail?_

He ordered another green tea and read the same page in his book four times before setting it down in frustration.

At 12:45, he sent her a text saying: _Hey everything ok? I thought we were meeting at 11:45?_

His text said delivered, but remained unread.

At 1:00, he was ready to peel off his twitching skin. His fingers drummed an unsteady beat on the table, while his knee jiggled an opposing rhythm underneath it. The full mug of green tea, long since forgotten, threatened to spill its tepid liquid on the scarred table of the old coffee shop (a relic of the days when it had a unique name and was owned by someone with a dream and not just the exorbitant net worth and unencumbered funds to afford an outrageous franchise fee). His body, too big for the small chair it occupied and the equally small table beside him, vibrated the very floor underneath his feet.

He picked up his phone to try calling Rey again, not wanting to consider the possibility of what he would do if it just rang and rang and _rang_ — when suddenly, it vibrated in his hand. He felt relief swell through his body in waves, felt himself get almost dizzy with it, when he looked down and saw that the vibration was not Rey getting in touch with him, but instead a text from Finn.

Finn?

He opened his phone with shaky fingers, taking one, two attempts to enter his code. Finn and he, while on decent enough terms, were not exactly “texting friends”. In fact, the only person he ever really texted was Rey. Nobody else was worth the effort of trying to coordinate too-large fingers with a too-small keypad.

_Have u heard from Rey?_

Ben read the message over three times, his stomach sinking lower and lower each time. Three moving dots appeared, indicating that Finn was typing again. Ben waited with bated breath.

_Did u see what happened? I kno she was at the school board offices near there so I wanted to check that she was ok but she’s not answering her phone. Lmk._

‘What happened’? _What happened?_ What did he mean what ‘happened’? Ben fumbled to press the call button on his phone, frantically looking around the coffee shop. Aside from himself, there were four other occupants – quiet, for a lunch crowd. Two were talking to one another over cups of coffee, a half-eaten muffin between them. One was clacking away at a laptop. The other was in a cushier chair, reading quietly. Everyone seemed oblivious to this mysterious event that Finn had alluded to.

He listened to the phone ring twice and on the third ring, Finn answered.

“Hey man, sorry I bugged you, I just wanted to make sure—”

“What happened?” Ben asked, urgently.

There was a pause. “Is Rey not with you?”

Ben shook his head, then realized belatedly Finn couldn’t see him. “No. No. She’s not. She’s – she didn’t show up for our meeting time and I’m trying to call her, but she’s not answering. I don’t – Finn, what happened?”

“Fuck, Ben. _Fuck_. She was right there, she was right at that fucking spot – FUCK!”

The panic in Finn’s voice sent Ben flying out of his chair and grabbing his book and his jacket. The table and chair skidded in opposite directions, tea sloshing over the side of the mug, but he paid it zero heed as he raced out of the coffee shop towards his car – two baristas and four occupants all stopping what they were doing and turning their heads to watch him go.

“What happened, Finn? Finn, _what the fuck happened?_ ”

~~~

Ben had never gotten anywhere faster in his life.

The coffee shop was about fifteen minutes away from the area where Rey had been. Through sheer will, a bit of luck, and flagrant disregard of legal - or safe - driving practices, he arrived in the general vicinity in less than eight.

This, also in spite of the fact that the highway exit was blocked and he’d had to get off at the exit before. Then he’d had to make his way through a few of the large and busy intersections in the area, before being stopped again by ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars cordoning off where he needed to get to.

He had no recollection of any of it. Nor could he recall stopping and parking on one of the side streets just off the major thoroughfare from where the school board offices were located and would not recall where or in what condition he’d left his car – was it still running? Did he at least have his keys? – singularly focused on getting to the area where she might be. Ensuring that she was okay.  

Finn’s words drummed mercilessly through his head. _Some crazy person… white van… just running over people on the sidewalks… so many injured… not sure how many dead yet… how many dead… dead…_

She had just gotten accepted to one of the city’s major school boards. She had her social work and special education qualifications already, had been working as an assistant in numerous classrooms, both paid and volunteer. Wanting to improve upon a system that had almost failed her as a child, bumped from home to home, ignored and forgotten. She had gone back to school, gotten her teaching qualifications, applied and applied and applied. Finally, _finally_ she’d been given a shot. Today was the day she submitted her final paperwork. She was going to be able to apply for work starting in the summer. Today was the day… today was the day that she…

Ben had to blank his mind. He focused on the thudding of his footsteps as he ran to the square, an open space area of shops and cafes. It was one of the first nice days of the season. The restaurants would have put out their tables and chairs for the day, expecting customers to want to bask in the warm sun of early spring. Finn had said this is where most of the damage had been wrought and it was also adjacent to the building where Rey had been. Ben looked around frantically. He saw several ambulances treating people in the main square, with caution tape holding back a larger crowd. He jogged over to the crowd and started desperately scanning faces, looking for her small, familiar one amidst the throng of distressed strangers.

He prayed – he was not a believer, certainly not a praying man, but oh, how he prayed – that he would see her, here, amidst those who were shaken, but well. Unharmed. Whole.

Yet, another scan of each face confirmed his worst fear. 

None of them were Rey.

People were crying, huddled together, or staring blankly in shock. He heard someone mutter to someone else about the “bodies” having already been taken away to the nearest trauma centre. His own body started to tremble. He heard a shout, hoarse and desperate:

“Rey!”

Those around him jolted and looked up towards him and that’s when he realized the shout had come from his own numb lips. He dazedly turned in the direction of the ambulances, refusing to look at the signs of carnage on the other side of the police tape, instead focusing on the helpers – the police officers, the fire fighters, the paramedics. He could see blurry images of people being treated in the back of open ambulances. People who were sitting up, some bloodied, some crying. Older people, younger people. He agitatedly rubbed his eyes, willing them to focus, ignoring the fact that his hands came back wet.

“ _Rey_!” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again. “REY!” He knew he sounded unhinged. He _felt_ unhinged. A litany in his head, one word only: no no no no no _no no no—_

No response. People were talking to him now, quiet tones, almost deferential, hesitantly placing hands on his arms. He saw an officer approaching, an inscrutable expression on his face that Ben knew was a mask hiding the horrors he had witnessed this day.

His heart beat a painful and erratic rhythm in his chest as he looked away from the officer’s probing gaze. He tried to consider next steps, his thoughts moving in slow-motion through his brain. He was going to have to get back to his car somehow, drive to the hospital, check for her there, check if—

“ _Ben_!”

His head shot up. His eyes feverishly tried to take in the entire scene in front of him at once, to see where the voice came from, to ensure that it wasn’t just his heart playing tricks—

“BEN!”

 _There_. A small form, with a powerful bellow, standing in front of an ambulance and waving one arm frantically in the air.

Ben’s knees buckled.

Rather than collapsing, he used the momentum to duck under the police tape and sprint to her, completely disregarding the shouts of the officer he left quite literally in his dust.

He reached her in less time than it took to exhale and he immediately hauled her against him, wrapping both arms around her so tightly his hands ended up back at his own body.

“Oh, my _God_ ,” he groaned into her hair, inhaling her scent, tucking her into his body. “ _Jesus Christ._ Thank God. Thank _God._ ” He pulled back and showered kisses over her face, tasting the salt of her tears and the tang of her sweat and wanting to devour her whole, to open up his chest and bury her in there, to carve a space where he could keep her, safe, forever.

She was crying – heaving, ugly sobs, wracking her body, causing her small frame to tremble with the physical and emotional weight of them as she gave him almost her entire body weight. He could feel her relief in the way she sagged against him. He held her tighter. 

“I’m okay,” she finally reassured him between sobs, her words belying her actions, a thin arm twined fiercely around his neck as she continued to shakily cry.

He realized her other arm was not wrapped around him in equal measure, so he looked down between their bodies. Resting against her chest, in a makeshift sling, he saw it was wrapped from palm to elbow. He made a distressed sound and went to lean back to avoid causing her further injury, but she held him fast with her uninjured arm.

“I’m okay,” she repeated, her tears beginning to slow. “I’m s-so sorry—” She hiccuped, her voice stilted and shaky. “—that you were worried. I know what you must have thought. It’s just, when it hap-happened, I was walking through the square to the subway station and then people started screaming and r-running and I got knocked over, that’s why m-my wrist—and in the confusion, m-my bag f-f-fell—” She had started trembling again with more ferocity and the tears started fresh as she pressed her lips together, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head, resting her forehead against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said again, through her tears.

“Don’t apologize,” he rasped, pressing his lips to the top of her head and wrapping his arms around her again, drawing her shaking body into his own. “Please don’t apologize. You’re here, you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

“But so many aren’t—!” she wailed, muffled, in his chest. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Ben, so many—so many people—”

“I know, baby,” he muttered into her hair. His eyes met the weary eyes of the paramedic who’d been treating her. The woman stood back, giving them their privacy, but it was clear from the medical equipment in her hands that she had been interrupted from her assessment of Rey’s injuries. “Let’s get you back into the ambulance and make sure you’re taken care of properly.”

She nodded into his chest and let him guide her back to the paramedic.

Once she was being treated again with Ben at her side, his hand soothingly stroking her back, he allowed himself a minute to look around the square, to take in the evidence of the horrible series of events that occurred that afternoon. To question who could do such a thing and how—? His jaw clenched.

And to dwell for a moment on the victims. Those whose injuries were too severe. Those whose loved ones would not have the pleasure of a joyful, relief-filled reunion at the end of the day. His eyes involuntarily welled with tears as he took Rey in once more – disheveled, dirt-streaked, sweaty and beaten.  Evidence of bruising around her jaw, scrapes on her arms, a tear in her jeans that wasn’t there before. Messy. Hurt. Beautiful. Perfect. And, most importantly, here.

Here.

In the end, that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet came to me as a way to cope with tragedy on a large scale. To be grateful for the helpers and the ordinary heroes. And to hold your loved ones just a little bit closer, for all those who may no longer have that privilege.


	5. dead in a pauper's grave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > A response to [@the-reylo-void](http://the-reylo-void.tumblr.com)'s poignant and heart wrenching post about grief, that can be found [here](http://the-reylo-void.tumblr.com/post/173199581307/grief-is-a-deeply-lonely-thing-the-world).
> 
> Trigger Warnings:  
>  \- Grief  
>  \- Loss  
>  \- Panic Attacks 
> 
> **Tags** : Hurt/Comfort

* * *

 

_“They were filthy junk traders. Sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert.“_

_They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert._

_dead in a pauper’s grave._

_dead_

_dead_

**_dead_ **

Rey bursts through the door into the captain’s quarters of the Falcon and lets it shut automatically behind her, before bracing her hands on her knees and folding her body near in half, head almost between her legs. Her breath is coming out in frenetic wheezes and choked gasps and she can feel the corners of her vision darkening.

It’s happening again.

For the third time in as many days, she has found herself gripped by a feeling that manifests in cold dread, icy sweat prickling her forehead and back, gathering at her upper lip and under her arms. Once she starts feeling this way, she knows now that she needs to get somewhere private, quickly, before the other symptoms begin and anyone sees her. 

Oh, she knows Finn would be worried. Rose and Leia troubled and sympathetic, respectively. Poe would be outwardly, demonstratively concerned, with an underlying thread of _This is our spark? Our last hope?_ that he would believe stayed hidden in the depths of his mind (little does he know). 

The problem is, none of them would _understand_. 

Regardless, she can’t burden them. Poe is right: she is the spark. The hope. The last Jedi. The one who is meant to lead them to victory. It wouldn’t do for any of them, not a single one, to see her in her current state. 

The feeling of dread escalates now to a catastrophic scale. Bile rises in her throat as her arms go numb, hands tightening until they involuntarily curl into fists and she can do nothing to unfurl them. _So this is what it feels like to die_ , she thinks, also for the third time in as many days. Her practical mind can understand that this is not death, this is simply her body rebelling against the shocks it has undergone in so little time. However, where is her practical mind now? Would practicality not dictate that her breath come out smooth and steady, rather than in these short, panicked, retching gasps? Would practicality not deem the use of her legs as important, as opposed to having them collapse underneath her, knees hitting the ground with jarring force? 

Practical mind, indeed. 

She feels herself shifting out of consciousness and it reminds her of the Force Bond. Of Ben. 

 _I wish_ , she thinks, as her chest continues to tighten and tighten and she knows, with certainty, that this is the end, _I wish he were here._ He would understand. He would know what to do with this all-encompassing grief, this feeling of loneliness and despair so primordial she is sure it must have been man’s first emotion, perhaps his only emotion, perhaps the only emotion that has ever existed. Happiness is simply less despair. Love is less loneliness. But neither ever fully reach any real sort of euphoria, despite what the holos would have you believe. 

Her body hits the ground next and she is wheezing, arms curling inwards, as she protectively tucks her knotted hands into her chest, wondering what it would be like if she had anticipated she would die alone. Would it be easier? To not have held out the hope of someone’s return? Of a life yet to begin? Would it be easier, now, to be by herself as the world goes dark and sound cuts out and her gasping breath echoes across a vast emptiness–

“ _Rey._ ”

She feels a vibration on the ground beneath her, can see the shape of a black figure dropping down beside her. Feels a large, warm hand on her back. 

She senses an invasion, a pressing of her mind, but is powerless to defend herself against it so she allows it and tries only to hide her overwhelming feeling of relief. 

He’s here. 

_He’s here._

It will be okay now. 

Everything will be okay. 


	6. just deserts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS ASKED: #62. “I want you to remember: you deserve this.” NSFW.
> 
> Modern AU early stages couple Rey + Ben are attending Finn/Poe's wedding. Sexual frustration ensues. 
> 
> **Tags** : Sexting, Cockteasery (like Tomfoolery, but smuttier), Edging

* * *

“Ben…Ben,” Rey moaned, fingers tangled in jet black waves, heels digging into a muscled back. “More—” her breath caught and her back arched and Ben pulled away, removing his fingers from her body and kissing up towards her belly button while she writhed beneath him.

“I want you to remember,” he said, nipping at her hip bone, then her ribs, as she vocalized her protest, “you deserve this.”

“I beg your—ohhh,” she moaned as his mouth latched onto one of her nipples.

\---

It had started with a text.

Ben, casually grocery shopping, picking up some necessities before he had to get home to shower and get ready for Poe and Finn’s wedding that evening, had felt a vibration in his pocket.

Digging his phone out, he read the message preview.

_Can’t decide what to wear tonight._

Rey. He smiled when he saw her name. They had only been dating six months, but he knew. Oh, he knew. (He knew the way you know about a good melon.) Still smiling, he swiped the message with his thumb, unlocking the phone just as a photo text came through.

And then he almost dropped it.

As it was, he quickly clicked the lock screen off in case someone happened to be walking by at that moment and caught a glimpse of what he was seeing on his screen. After glancing around and determining he was, in fact, by himself in the pasta sauce aisle, he quickly swiped open his phone again.

Rey. Fucking Rey.

In the picture, he recognized the dingy bathroom in her apartment. Natural light was spilling in from the adjacent bedroom, but it was still late afternoon sun, so it gave the picture an almost dreamy glow. Rey had her back to the mirror and was taking the picture over her shoulder. He could see her face in profile: cute, pert nose, one dimple. Her hair in those three buns she favoured. Her bare back, slim, nipping into a narrow waist and then flaring out. Two dimples at the base of her spine. And a perfect, lush, round ass, perched right on the edge of the counter. The camera beside her face was tilted slightly downwards so that it could capture the full effect of her pose in the mirror.

He gawked at it for a full minute, taking in every detail, subtly adjusting himself in his pants, before he responded.

_I’m coming over. I can help you decide._

Less than a minute later, her response came through.

_Lol don’t! We’re going to be late as it is. Hopping into the shower now. I’ll think of you x_

He almost groaned out loud at the idea of her in the shower. And her in the shower thinking of him. Another adjustment was required before he strategically placed himself directly in the front of the shopping cart handles and kept it close to his body as he pushed it away.

\---

“Ben…” she groaned out loud, holding his head to her nipple as he nipped the distended bud. His hand came up to play with the other side, circling with his forefinger around and around rosy peak. She tilted her hips upwards, trying to gain some sort of friction against his body, wrapping her legs loosely around the backs of his thighs and knees, but he gently pushed her hips back down to the bed.

Continuing to lavish attention on her breasts, he bit and suckled, now purposely avoiding the dusky nipples begging for his attention. He kissed down between her breasts and then up her neck, biting softly at the spot where it met her shoulder, kissing her throbbing pulse before sucking the soft skin into his mouth.

Her hand creeped down until it situated itself between their bodies. She grabbed his hard cock and used it to rub her clit up and down, spreading her wetness along the tip.

He lifted his head, took his hand from her breast and, using his other hand as well, pressed both her hands above her head. “No,” he said nipping at her lips, not enough to cause pain, but enough for her to take notice. “Not yet.”

“Ben!” she cried out, thrashing her head.

\---

“Ben!” she laughed, skirting away from his hands and lips. “We’re going to be late!” She grabbed her clutch and breezed through the door of her apartment, leaving him to follow her.

She was driving him mad. After frantically throwing the last of his groceries into the cart and speeding through check-out, he had gone home and taken the world’s quickest shower, dressing while his hair was still wet, his dress shirt sticking damply to his body. He briefly considered taking matters into his own hands - literally - to grant himself some relief in the shower, but he figured if he was fast enough getting ready, they could afford a quickie before they had to be at the ceremony.

In his haste, he had forgotten that Rey was the slowest person in the world when it came to getting ready for an event. By the time he had gotten to her place, forty minutes before they had to leave, she was still in a towel painstakingly applying her makeup. She laughingly rebuffed his attempts to unwrap the towel from her body, saying Finn would kill them if they showed up late and disheveled to the ceremony. Instead, Ben was forced to sit on his hands and watch the weather network, simmering with pent up sexual frustration.

Then, she had the gall to change into a stunning, form-fitting, and _short_ dress. It was burgundy lace, sleeveless, but with a high, modest collar… until she turned around to reveal an open back from her shoulder blades to the curve of her spine. She affected a twirl, her half-up hair, lightly curled, swirling around her shoulders.

“What do you think?” she asked him, dimpling.

He begrudgingly admitted she looked gorgeous and stole a kiss before she admonished him laughingly and swept out the door.

\---

He swept his tongue around her nipple, his hands still pinning hers over her head.

“Please… please,” she whimpered.

“Please what?” he rasped, kissing around the straining rosy bud without actually touching it.

“Put it in your mouth, Ben, _please,_ you’re _killing_ me—” She bit her lip and arched up, gasping and moaning.

He acquiesced by taking her nipple into his mouth, swirling and nipping with his tongue and teeth, and she keened her pleasure.

“And touch me, oh, please touch me,” she begged, wrapping her leg around his hips and ass.

“Touch you where, sweetheart?” he breathed against her distended nipple. She went to move her hand to show him, but he held her fast. “Sorry,” he murmured. “You’ll have to tell me.”

“Mmm,” she moaned, a flush building on her chest and moving into her cheeks and ears. He was pleased to see her response to this side of him. “Touch me…down there,” she whispered, the flush growing on her cheeks. He bit back a smile. His little ‘sexter’. His sexually ambitious girl. Still shy about some things and so fucking cute about it, too.

 _God, he loved her_.

The admission came unbidden to his mind, but he wasn’t surprised. While his heart beat a bit faster at the thought, he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

“Down…here?” he questioned, his one hand shifting to pin both her wrists together, his other grazing her knee.

“No, no, Ben—come _on_ ,” she moaned, gritting her teeth at him and throwing her head back in frustration. “Higher!”

“Ah, higher.” He dragged his hand slowly up her inner thigh, fingertips barely skimming, before placing it gently at the apex of her thighs. She tried to grind down on him but he placed his hand flat over her mound and held her steady until she stopped. “Good girl,” he murmured and she let out a quiet sob. He moved his hand back down and, finding her lower lips, softly parted her. He rubbed up and down, moving slick wetness - _oh, God, she was so wet_. Ben saw white for a minute and was almost worried he was going to come all over her bedsheets. For the first time, he questioned the sanity of inflicting this sort of torture on both of them, but he was determined to see this through. He gently rubbed the wetness around her clit without applying direct pressure on it. He could see her shudder and contract, her body closing on nothing, as she became slicker underneath his hand.

“Be-e-e-e-e-n,” she said in a long, dragged out moan, “ _please_!”

\---

“Please, Ben,” she wheedled. “Let’s dance!”

She had been torturing him all night, walking in front of him in that short dress and those heels, her ass swaying with every step. Typically she was a newborn baby gazelle in heels, but for some reason today - he was convinced it was purely to torment him further - she had mastered the art of the strut.

She was also constantly touching him - grazing his crotch with her arm when she needed to reach for something, resting her hand gently on his upper thigh as she leaned in to talk to someone, standing directly in front of him so the heat of her body melded into his. He would be willing to dismiss it as accidental or that he was looking into things too much - the result of his overactive libido - if it wasn’t for the fact that she caught his gaze every time it happened, with a knowing twinkle in her eye, one dimple teasing him almost as much as her smirk.

Yeah. She knew _exactly_ what she was doing.

So, when she grabbed his hands as the music played and tried to drag him out of his seat, he knew where this was headed, too.

Of course, he still let her hoist him up and lead him to the dance floor as a popular song with a strong beat pumped through the speakers. Finn and Poe had hired a band as well as a DJ, one for the more classic songs that could be covered easily by a semi-competent wedding singer, and the other for the songs that required a beat and a lot of hopping - something Rey and her friends were fond of doing. Ben would usually came out with her to the dance floor on the rare occasion they went out to the bar or club, yet would remain hopping-adjacent - not one to participate, but never impeding on Rey’s fun either. It worked for them.

At this point, her shoes had come off - _of course, little heathen_ \- and she danced to the beat with their friends Rose and Jessika and Rose’s older sister, Paige. Paige was a bit less inclined to hop, like Ben, but all four girls had had a bit to drink at this point and nothing could hold them back. Soon, however, Rey shimmied away from the group towards Ben.

He’d been semi-hard all day thanks to her, but seeing her move towards him with a particular glint in her eye made his cock twitch. She didn’t stop until she’d placed her bare feet over his dress shoes and, standing on her tip-toes even while standing on _his_ toes, she brought her lips to his.

Her arms twined around his neck and his around her waist, fingertips skimming the top of her ass. She molded her body to his as she stroked his tongue with her own.

“Mmm,” her appreciative moan rumbled from her chest to his and he growled in response, this time allowing his hand to coast past the curve of her spine and give her ass a generous squeeze. He deepened the kiss, tasting her, all boozy vodka and the tartness of whatever off-brand orange juice they’d had behind the bar—

“Get a room, you two!” Finn shouted as he and Poe danced by them, Poe laughing heartily beside him.

They broke apart and Rey smirked up at Ben, her eyes sparkling, before going back to dance with the girls.

\---

Ben smirked up at her as she shook off his grip and moved his hand right where she needed it, guiding the tips of his fingers to her clit and rubbing it along with him.

“Inside—” she gasped, jerking against his hand. “Put them inside me, oh please, Ben, please—”

He obeyed, fitting two of his large fingers into the slick welcome of her entrance and pushing them inwards, thrusting shallowly in a steady rhythm. His thumb rubbed her clit on each outward stroke. As he felt her begin to throb around him, he pulled his fingers out and rubbed soothingly around her outer lips.

Rey did not appear to find it soothing, if her scream of frustration was any indication. She put a pillow over her face and screamed again. Removing the pillow in a rapid, short arc, she thwacked him in the side of the head with it.

“Ben Solo, you better _finish this or so help me God—”_

He couldn’t help but laugh, kissing her cheek, her ear, her neck. “Just giving you a taste of your own medicine, baby.”

She hiccuped in outrage. “I wasn’t _this_ bad. Please, Ben—” She pressed her damp, flushed cheek to his, tendrils of her hair, long-since loosened from their half-up style, sticking to both their faces.

He murmured soothingly against her ear and removed his fingers from her body entirely. She sobbed in protest, but cut herself off when he leveraged himself over her, placing a hand on either side of her head.

“Yes, yes—” she chanted, shimmying closer to him as he fisted his cock in his hands, lining it up with her wet and swollen lower lips, coating the tip of it with her slickness, before pushing forward. “ _Fuck,_ yes, _BEN_!” She locked her ankles around his buttocks and upper thighs, canting upwards and grinding violently into him.

He could feel her begin to throb around him almost immediately and her entire body shuddered with the force of her climax. The squeezing pressure of her internal muscles on the unbearable hardness of his cock, added to the pleasure-pain of her blunted nails scoring his back, and Ben was right behind her, groaning loudly into her neck as he came, nipping at her ear, kissing her throat.

He collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her arms and legs around him like some type of tree-dwelling creature, stroking and kissing his hair and temple in lazy movements.

“Sorry for being such a cocktease,” she said, finally, although she had difficulty holding back her giggles. “Didn’t mean to torment you.”

He huffed out a laugh before rolling off of her slightly, so as not to crush her. “It was sweet torment,” he assured her, kissing her cheek, before cradling her closer to him. “Sleep now. It’s late. You partied hard.”

“Mmm,” she murmured, sleepily. “It was a nice wedding.” She cuddled into him and kissed him softly on his chest. “Goodnight.”

“Yeah,” he agreed with her first comment, dreamy thoughts floating through his dozing mind - Rey, a gauzy white dress flowing in a soft breeze, walking towards him, maybe on a beach, the colours of the sunset illuminating her face—

Her breathing had gotten steadier, her trademark wheeze - not quite a snore - making it known that she was fast asleep.

He snuggled her closer. “I love you,” he whispered into her hair, before placing a kiss on her head and falling asleep himself.

\---

“I love him,” Rey confessed to Rose, sipping on her fourth (or was it fifth?) screwdriver of the night.

Rose almost spat out her own drink. “You what?”

“I do,” she said softly, watching as he came back from the washroom, politely standing aside so another couple could pass through the entrance ahead of him, before following them in. He ran his hand through his hair and touched the knot of his tie - both nervous gestures - and her heart ached just a little more. “I really do, Rose.”

“Well?!” Rose had recovered admirably and now could hardly contain her excitement. “When are you going to tell him?”

Rey watched as Ben spotted her in the crowd and caught her eye. His mouth quirked in a private half-smile, his dimple on display, as he made his way towards her and Rose.

She couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her own face as she chewed her straw and waited for him to get to her.

“Soon,” she assured her friend, not taking her eyes off him. “Soon.”


	7. practically perfect in every way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS ASKED: 19, 22, 29 together? pretty pls?
> 
> For those of you (not) keeping track: 
> 
> 19\. “I can’t stand how they’re looking at you.”  
>  22\. “You’re being too friendly with them.”  
>  29\. “Do you trust me?” 
> 
> This one is (shocker) smut-free! (loses 3/4 of my audience) 
> 
> **Tags** : Insecure!Rey, Reassuring!Ben, Modern AU, Parenthood, Kindergarten Orientation, 1960s Walt Disney Productions 
> 
> I own nothing.

* * *

 

The temperature in the car is chilly and it has nothing to do with the air conditioning.

Ben Solo hazards a glance over at his wife. The lines of her body are tense and she is slightly turned away from him, looking out her window.

“Babe…” he ventures. “I don’t understand—”

“Save it,” she snaps, without turning around.

He lets out a gusty sigh. Continues driving. And waits.

“You know—” She whips around to look at him.

There we go.

“— _I_ just don’t understand how someone can be so _clueless_. I _told_ you how I couldn’t stand how they were looking at you. I _told_ you that you were being too friendly with them,” she snarls, “but nooo, you had to be good-guy Ben Solo, dad-of-all-trades, and creamer of _Real Housewives of Suburbia panties_!” she ends on a shout, before crossing her arms and huffing back towards the window.

“Yeah, but—” He hazards a glance at the back seat, where their son lay slumped against the window in his booster, already fast asleep. He lowers his voice just in case. “I really don’t see what the big deal is.”

She turns to him again, aghast. “The ‘big deal’? You don’t understand what the _big deal_ is?”

 _That’s what I said_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t voice it since he values his life.

Instead, he settles for a non-committal half-shrug.

She scoffs in disgust and turns away again. “You know,” she says after a loaded minute, “I had reservations about sending him to this posh private school from the get-go, knowing the reception that the grandson of Leia Organa-Solo would receive, the type of people he would be going to school with. And now, seeing that whole _scene_ in there, _clearly_ I was right.”

“ _What_ scene?” he questions in an explosive half-whisper. He doesn’t want to fight with her, he never does, but something has to give here.

“You can’t tell me you have no clue what those she-wolves were saying and thinking about you, _Ben Organa-Solo_?” she sneers. She affects a high-pitched tone: “‘Oh, _Ben_ , is it? I hope little Elijah is in my Rosemary’s class. Will you be joining parent council? We would _love_ to have a dad’s opinion on things. Ohh, who is this bedraggled creature beside you? Did you manage to snag a _white British_ nanny? Look at you, a regular Mister bloody Banks!’” Her voice conspicuously transforms back to its normal tone as her speech ends on a snarl.

“Who’s Mister Banks?” Ben can’t help but ask.

“ _Who’s Mister_ —?!” If possible, she’s now angrier. “You know what, forget it. Just stop talking to me.”

Ben, not a stupid man (although, perhaps a slightly oblivious one?) complies. The rest of the drive is spent in icy silence. Once they get home, Rey goes to the back to unbuckle their young son and carries his sleepy form into their house.

Ben watches her from his spot standing just outside the driver’s seat of the car. Elijah is so big now – his torso almost matching Rey’s in length, with long, gangly legs and arms – but Ben knows she would never hear that he’s too big to be carried. Not yet.

He sighs gustily, before closing and locking the car door.

Once he gets inside, Rey is already upstairs trying to get their sleepy son ready for bed. Ben hears muffled voices, water running, a toilet flushing, a lilting laugh. He sits heavily on the couch, replaying the evening in his head.

While he recalls her ‘warnings’ to him early in the evening and recognizes that the women at Elijah’s Kindergarten Orientation perhaps behaved in a slightly predatory – although one couldn’t exactly call it inappropriate, they were surrounded by four-year-olds for chrissakes – manner, the severity of her response takes him by surprise. She has never been an overly possessive or envious partner. Lord knows he’s never given her reason to question his loyalty or fidelity. The running joke amongst their friends was how Ben’s devotion towards Rey borderlines on obsessive.

What was it about these women that set her off?

He thinks about her words – “posh private school”, “grandson of Leia Organa-Solo”, “type of people” – and an answer to his question starts to formulate in his brain.

He hears her pad downstairs and bypass the couch to go straight to the kitchen. Getting up, he follows her.

“I’m not in the mood, Ben,” she says immediately, though the icy fire is out of her words.

“Let me just ask you something,” he replies, keeping his tone neutral, non-confrontational.

She opens the fridge to take out a bottle of water. She doesn’t give him the go ahead to speak, but she doesn’t leave the room either. He takes it as tacit permission to continue.

“Do you trust me?” he asks. He watches as her shoulders sag and she appears to wilt before his eyes. Still, she drinks from her water bottle and doesn’t answer right away, avoiding his gaze.

“Rey.” Her eyes flick to his. “Do you?”

Capping her drink, she sighs heavily. “Of course I trust you. That’s not—”

“So then,” he continues, purposely interrupting her, “you have to trust that I understand where you’re coming from.”

She looks at him curiously. “Where am I coming from, Ben?” It’s spoken softly, but with a razor sharp edge, hidden just below the surface. A switchblade. _Tread carefully, Solo._

“I know you have reservations about the school and I know you only want what’s best for Elijah. That you want him to grow up in a situation that’s much better than the way you grew up, without sacrificing his integrity or forgetting who he is.”

She takes a sharp breath and looks away for a beat, before meeting his gaze steadily once more.

_Good girl._

“I know those types of people rub you the wrong way,” he continues, “the way they flaunt their wealth while simultaneously being entirely ungrateful for everything they have. The way they think they’re better than everyone without actually putting any work or value into anything they do.” _I see you_ , he adds in his head. _And I know your insecurities were speaking for you earlier, my beautiful girl, but if you could only see yourself the way I do, you would never feel that way._ He cannot say the last part out loud, she would resist the sentiment and it would ruin everything he’s said up until that point, but he tries to send it to her heart from his own.

She eyes him silently and he approaches her carefully, tentatively, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her closer.

She begrudgingly wraps her arms around his waist in turn, crinkling her nose and screwing up her mouth in a half-smirk. Rey’s signature apology face. She practically has it trademarked. He knows it’s the best he’s going to get, so he takes it.

“They don’t mean anything,” he adds, mostly for the sake of talking and as a prelude to the fact that he’s going to kiss her and they both know it. “If I’m nice, it’s because I have nothing to prove by being nasty. If they take my politeness as anything else, they’re the ones who are going to look foolish. Because _I_ —” He tilts forward slightly, glancing down at her mouth. “—am not interested in silly women.”

“Oh, no?” she mumbles and now it’s her turn to glance at his lips as they get closer to hers.

“No,” he assures her. “ _Definitely_ not.” He captures her lips with his in a soft kiss. She’s the one who takes it further, tracing his lips with her tongue and gaining entrance, licking softly at the inside of his mouth. He tightens his grip on her waist and pulls her closer.

They kiss for a minute, lazily, touching lips and tongues and sharing breath and simply _being_.  

She pulls away slowly and sighs contentedly before resting her forehead on his chest.

“It _was_ a good school,” she admits, grumbling. He hides a smile in her hair. “I liked the math program. And the focus on extra-curricular.” She looks up at him, eyes shining. “I just want him to be happy. I don’t want him to feel judged, or pressured, or– or– _less than_.” She swallows hard. “You know?”

He looks at her with gentle eyes, knowing now with certainty that he hit the nail on the head with his assumptions about the origins of her anger. He aches knowing that there had been a time in her life where she had felt unworthy and that, even now, as an adult – excelling in her roles as mother, wife, friend – those old insecurities had the ability to rear their ugly head, causing her to question her value in a world where, truly, she was priceless.

At the same time, he knows that if he were to confront her about any of this, even if his intent was to reassure, she would push back against his words, some of that old scrappiness coming through – the instinct always to fight rather than show weakness.

So, instead, he pulls her tighter. Kisses her hair. Holds her close. “It’s just kindergarten, right?” he says after a beat. “If we don’t like it – or he doesn’t – we’ll pull him out. Put him in the public school down the street. Yeah?”

She nods against his chest. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Alright.” Kissing her one last time on the top of her head, he pulls back. “Let’s go watch something on TV for a bit.”

She looks up at him, a sparkle in her eye that usually only means one thing. “I have a better idea.”

He’s about to eagerly follow her into the bedroom when she breezes past him towards the TV. Grabbing the remote, she pulls up the on-demand channels and he sees her browsing through the categories and sub-categories, before selecting what she wants. Stepping closer, he squints at the screen, before looking at her, baffled.

“Mary Poppins?”


	8. of squirrels and trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > MRSVIOLETWRITES ASKED: Prompt: "Rey climbed Ben like a tree... And she was a squirrel."
> 
> Thanks to [Reylosnetwork](https://reylosnetwork.tumblr.com) discord for taking up whatever free time I have and then ALSO leading me to fill prompts like this one. Apologies to the other prompts that have been waylaid for this urgent shitpost. 
> 
> **Credits/Shoutouts to the following tumblrs** :   
>  -[@mrsvioletwrites](https://mrsvioletwrites.tumblr.com)  
>  -[@reyloday](https://reyloday.tumblr.com)  
>  -[@kylohhh](https://kylohhh.tumblr.com)  
>  -[@mumblesmusings](https://mumblesmusings.tumblr.com)  
>  for the part they played in this illustrious garbage. I played around with the prompt language a bit, but I think it still works. 
> 
> And also to [**this post**](http://brgerqueen.tumblr.com/post/173520593164/venificas-what-a-nice-tree-reblog-if-youre-a) AKA my true inspiration. 
> 
> **Tags** : Drunk!Rey, Squirrel!Rey, Sleepy!Ben, Tree!Ben 
> 
> Enjoy.

“Shit! Fuck! _Fuck. Shhh._ Shhh.”

Ben cracked one eye open and took a second to orient himself, listening for what had woken him up. Muffled clatters came from somewhere near the front of the apartment. He slapped at the nightstand once, twice, before finally latching onto his phone. Clicking on one of the buttons, a white light flooded the room. He squinted.

3:06 AM.

Groaning, he dropped the phone and rolled over. Then both eyes shot open as he heard a loud crash.

“ _OUCH!”_

Ben was up and out of bed before his body could process his actions. It took him a few stumbling steps to get to the bedroom door by the time his brain could connect to the concept of “walking” once more. He stood in the doorway, arms braced against the doorframe, as he saw Rey limping towards the direction of the kitchen from the entryway of their apartment. Her arms were tangled in her coat and she was wearing one shoe. The small table they had by the front door was askew, as if someone had shoved it a short distance, and the tiny shallow basket they had for holding keys and change was on the floor, its contents strewn about.

“Shh, shh! God damn it, _shhhh_ ,” he heard her hissing, but a cursory glance around the room told him that she was alone. So she was shushing… herself?

She had gone out with the girls that night to celebrate. They had all recently graduated from the same engineering program (with Rey at the top of her class, an addendum that Ben always made in his mind). Since they had all found each other in a program that was still predominantly male-driven, the women had stuck together through the years and had, ultimately, formed a close bond.

A bond that typically involved drinking.

Rey had warned Ben that it was going to be a late night, so he had turned the volume up on his phone just in case and gone to sleep.

Seeing that she was okay, albeit slightly disheveled and _clearly_ inebriated, he let her go to the kitchen for a minute while he straightened the table and basket she had knocked over, before following behind her.

She was leaned over the sink, tap on, drinking water as it poured out of the faucet.

He was not surprised.

He walked over to her and rested a gentle hand on her back. “Rey?”

She jolted and let out a high-pitched shriek, hands flying up to defend against her would-be attacker. When she saw it was just Ben, she drooped, breathing heavily.

“Geeeez, you scared me!” she cried, swatting his arm with the hand that was still half-embedded in the sleeve of her spring coat.

He gently extracted her arm from the sagging jacket before folding it and tossing it on the counter. He leaned back and crossed his arms.

“Fun night?” he asked with a smirk, taking in her bleary eyes and slightly rosy nose, the way she swayed slightly on her feet and – was that? – yeah, she was hiccupping. Just a bit.

“Oh yeah, it was rippin’,” she said, her voice raspy and slightly slurred, mouth quirking into a wide smile.

He couldn’t help but smile back, taking in her appearance. His eyes caught on her feet, still only fifty percent shoeless.

“Here.” He guided her to lean back against the counter and motioned for her to lift her foot. She looked at him quizzically and gave him her bare one. He laughed, shaking his head, and gave it a squeeze before setting it down. “The other one.” She looked down, as if mentally assessing which one was ‘other’, before realizing one foot was still contained by a chunky-heeled sandal. She obligingly lifted it into his waiting hand and he deftly undid the strap around her ankle before prying it off and placing it on top of her coat. He put her foot down gently and caught her staring at him intently. “What?”

“I am a fucking squirrel,” came the curious response.

He was silent for a beat. Then: “I’m sorry – what did you say?”

Her eyes tracked him from the top of his tousled, slept-on hair, dropping down to his white undershirt and crossing from bicep to bicep, before going lower to eye his baggy navy pajama pants. They lingered there for a minute as the pointed tip of her tongue came out slightly to wet her bottom lip, before trailing all the way down to his bare feet.

“You’re a goddamn tree,” she whispered, bringing her eyes all the way back up. A flush had risen in her cheeks and her eyes captured his. His breath caught and his cock twitched, apparently interpreting her heated look before his brain did. “And if you’re a tree…”

He barely had time to process her next move, before she launched herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck in one surprisingly fluid motion. He instinctively caught her under her bottom and held her there as her lips met his. She tasted like booze and old gum and he could glean the faintest hint of tobacco, harkening back to old habits they had shared in the earliest days of their relationship, habits that reared their head when alcohol was involved. Feelings of familiarity and nostalgia and comfort mingled with his burgeoning arousal as he happily opened his mouth to her demanding tongue and buried his hand in her tangled hair, while his other cupped her ass, holding her up.

After a few moments of feverish, wet kisses that left him hard and heated, she pulled away with a gasp.

“If you’re a tree,” she repeated breathlessly, pupils blown wide as she pulled his hair back with both hands so that his head tilted up and he was looking her right in the eyes, “then I’m a goddamn squirrel.” She kissed him once more, fiercely, inhaling sharply through her nose and nipping at his lower lip before pulling away. “Take me to bed.”

The tree obliged.


	9. stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> Happy Star Wars Day! Prompt 69. Smut? “You are driving me completely and utterly mad.” May the 4th be with you always~~
> 
> For this anon. The smut is back. 
> 
> I was listening to “Stay With Me” by Sam Smith when the inspiration hit for this one, so give it a listen while you read if you want to get into my state of mind. Or don’t. I’m not your boss. 
> 
> **Note** : I debated even mentioning this, but - there’s a lot going on in Rey’s mind through this. Please don’t consider any of it remotely non-con or even dub-con, because it’s not. Just the confused inner ramblings of a conflicted space gal. That said, if you want me to change the tags, let me know. 
> 
> **Tags** : Canonverse, Post-TLJ, This Ain't Rey & Ben's First (Sexual) Rodeo, Rey Has Lots of Feelings (Some Bad), But She Can't Help Herself, Do You Blame Her?

* * *

 

She feels the shift in atmosphere, the rising of gooseflesh on her arms, the sudden absence of sound.

She turns in her cot and rather than turning towards an empty space, it’s him. There with her. As she knew he would be.

They don’t speak. Hands reach, lips join, she rolls onto her back, him on top of her.

So much clothing, always, but they make quick work of it. He unwraps arm bands and removes tunics, pulls down pants and drags his hot mouth down down down, through the fine hair of her stomach, the coarser hair below, the wet heat hidden underneath.

Before she can so much as squirm, he comes back up and helps her take off his own restrictive clothing - a cowl, a vest, a tunic. Now, a bare chest. She runs her hands over him, feels the calluses on her fingers as they snag on his soft skin and sparse body hair and the occasional mole or scar.

Further, further they go, to the button of his trousers. He turns and pulls off tall boots, undoes the button, sheds the pants. He’s on top of her again, bare, and she feels him hard and insistent pressed to the very heart of her.

She shifts to take him in - maybe she’s not entirely ready yet, but she will be and anyway maybe the discomfort at first is okay, a reminder that this is wrong, that she doesn’t want it, not really, shouldn’t want it—

“ _Wait,_ ” he whispers against her lips, his hand gliding down between their bodies, his fingertips lightly searching, teasing. He parts the seam of her lower lips gently, strokes up and down, feather-light and worshipful. She feels him dip a finger — _his middle_ , she thinks, as the tip of her own middle finger tingles slightly — into her, up until the first knuckle. She feels the ridges of that tip, the slightly scratch of a callus or a blunt nail. He strokes in and out, shallow, never going much deeper than just past the first bend of his finger. He withdraws and rubs the wetness he’s drawn out against the bud of her sex. The bottoms of her feet tingle and her legs start to tremble, just slightly.

“Shhh,” he soothes against her cheek, dipping the finger lower, lower, back into the entrance of her body, wetter now, and up again to slip up and down against her clit. Her breath catches and she can feel her nipples, already hard, now puckered and sharp. She turns her face into his, digging her nails into his forearm as she spreads her legs wider for him, ignoring the voices in her head that call her names. The names they have for women like her. Who sacrifice pride and honour and their beliefs for the feelings they get when a man puts his fingers and his tongue and his cock inside of them.

He pretends he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. She feels how he holds himself back from responding in the clench of his jaw as he buries his face in her neck, his fingers slipping freely in and out of her, one at first, now two, while his thumb continues working her clit. Her legs are shaking in earnest as she pants, her teeth gritted and nostrils flaring.

“You,” she whispers into his tousled hair right under her nose, “are driving me completely and utterly mad.” She doesn’t only mean right now, in this moment, with his fingers on her and in her, and he knows it and she knows it.

She regrets the words immediately. They say too much and now she needs him to say something pithy in return. Something Han Solo or Poe Dameron would say. She waits, prays, for the tagline of a silver-tongued charmer, its insincerity putting their arrangement into perspective. _This is nothing_ , it has to say. _This means nothing_.

Instead, he stills. Lifts his head to search her eyes with his soft, reverent gaze, looking for all the galaxy like Ben Solo.

Not Kylo Ren.

Not anyone’s Supreme Leader.

But the Ben she has known since he mourned with her in a rock hut on a planet in the furthest regions of space and touched the tips of his fingers to hers to reassure her, bodily, that she had his companionship and his loyalty and whatever else she was willing to take from him.

His look undoes her, as it always does.

“Rey,” the word escapes his lips on an exhale and she can feel her eyes fill. She looks up and away to avoid his searching gaze, her body thrumming with unfulfilled desire.

He kisses her cheek and starts moving his fingers again, bringing his body lower and lower until his head is between her legs. His fingers still moving, he replaces his thumb on her clit with his tongue, sucking the swollen bud into his mouth, dragging his teeth on it lightly. His technique has improved. (She can vouch for the amount of practise he’s had.)

She digs her fingers into the bedsheets, arching her back. A noise comes through her clenched teeth, a half-feral cry. He places his other hand under her navel, holding her still, using his thumb to pull the skin under his mouth taut and open to his ministrations. She can hear the slip and slide of his fingers moving in the entrance of her body, while his tongue and teeth work the bundle of nerves just above it. He has her almost pinned and her legs shake and shake and she’s coming, she’s coming—

She covers her mouth with her hand as she keens under her palm. Two tears streak down her temples into her hairline.

Ben is moving up, his hand cupping her down below, soothing her as she comes down from her orgasm. He kisses her on the collarbone, then on the neck, and places a hand on either side of her head, looking down to slot himself into her wetness, still pulsing with the aftershocks of her climax.

Gathering her wits, with a mixture of her own strength and the ability to use the Force to her advantage, she flips their positions so that she’s on top with him underneath. He looks stunned for a minute, then swallows heavily as he takes her in — flushed from the neck up, messy hair, bare breasts rosy-tipped and freckled. His hands move up almost of their own volition to cup them, weighting them in his palms, rubbing his thumbs lightly over stiff nipples.

For all the times that the bond has opened for them since the day on Crait when she looked down at him and he looked up at her and she told him with her eyes that she needed _more_ —

And for all the times since their first messy kiss, teeth clacking and tongues dueling—

And for all the times since he first entered her with a gasp that reverberated through her body and the Force and probably the entire galaxy—

They have never done it like _this._

It’s so much easier to _pretend_ , when she’s under him. It feels like sacrificing her autonomy, a little bit like coercion – almost like she’s could be at his mercy if he so chooses (she refuses to acknowledge the absurdity of this thought – how he has been the hesitant one, the cautious one, the one who will stop at the first sign of her discomfort, the one who works to ensure she is more than ready before even approaching the thought of entering her—)

Being on top means control. It means intent.

She wants to give him this.

She adjusts her position so that she elevates slightly on her knees, reaching between them and gently pulling his painfully stiff cock away from his stomach. She fits it between her legs, finding the wet give of her body, before slowly sinking down.

He’s biting his lip hard enough to draw blood – she feels the pressure on her own bottom lip – fingers clenched into her hips as he watches her body take him all in. White flashes behind her eyes and her nipples spike and she knows she’s feeling the strength of his desire in this moment.

It makes her lightheaded, how much he wants her.

Slowly, she starts to move up and down, back and forth, taking a minute to find her rhythm. Ben is still white knuckled at her upper thighs, allowing her to take control, his head thrown back as low moans escape his parted lips. She feels his climax approaching and she places her hands flat on his stomach, feeling the muscles ripple beneath her palms, stroking upwards towards his chest, pressing into his collarbone, coming up to his neck. She loosely brings her hands together, thumbs touching lightly on his Adam’s apple.

He tilts his head down and looks at her then, pupils dilated, eyes cloudy with desire. Not even the barest hint of concern crosses his features. Not because he thinks her incapable, but because _he doesn’t care_. If she were to draw all her strength into her fingers and all the strength of the Force and crush his windpipe with the merest thought, he would die – she knows this as well as she knows her own self – he would die with a smile on his face and her name on his lips.

How did she ever think, for even a second, that she was the one surrendering control in these circumstances?

She moves her hands from his neck to grasp his hands at her hips and links her fingers through his, bringing both their hands to lie on either side of his head. They hold hands as she tilts her hips forward and the slide of their bodies hits just the right spot outside and inside and she feels him losing control, which expedites her own pleasure, and there, _there_ —

She clenches around him at the same time that she feels his warm, messy release inside of her, prolonging the pulsations of her inner walls against his lingering hardness. They both come with a loud cry, Rey grinding down as Ben jerks up. He forces her to release his hands so he can wrap his arms around her back and draw her close, pulling her flush against his body.

They lay pressed together like that, hearts pounding in unison, as they breathe heavily into the recycled air of Rey’s small room. She closes her eyes and buries her face deeper into his neck, his hair tickling her nose. She breathes in his scent, so familiar and suddenly so necessary.

 _Stay?_ she thinks at him, knowing he can hear her. Knowing he understands why she can’t – won’t – ever say it out loud, even tonight (especially tonight, when too much has already been said and yet they’ve barely spoken). 

His response is to tighten his arms around her. Anything else would be a lie.


	10. masquerade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> 5\. “Dance with me, and pretend the world doesn’t exist.” and 69. "You are driving me completely and utterly mad." Romeo & Juliet with masquerades. Thanks so much!
> 
> I’m gonna be real here - I did not know how to approach this “Romeo + Juliet with masquerades” business without going full, grand-scale story (which is what I’m trying to avoid with these prompts). So, I fiddled with it a bit and produced something that I’m actually kind of proud of. Also, this only covers prompt #5, since I did #69 in the previous prompt fill ([here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553363/chapters/34048646)) AND I fiddled with the wording a bit to fit the story (and characters) better. I DO WHAT I WANT. (Sometimes. Not really.) 
> 
> Thanks to my lovely anon for the prompt - it’s not exactly what you asked for, but I really hope you still like it (feel free to let me know in a private message or another anon ask!) and everyone else who keeps reading, leaving kudos and/or commenting. The love I have for you all is – yadda yadda yadda, onto the good stuff. 
> 
> **Tags** : Canonverse, Post-TLJ, Dancing, Masquerade-esque (there's masks, okay??)

* * *

The tune was still stuck in her head two standard days later.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that music had been so rarely produced or played in her lifetime, even during her time with the Resistance, where many different lifeforms from many different planets and even galaxies congregated in one place. Times had been somber. Times continued to be that way. Deaths and battles and more deaths. Some victories that felt like defeats. Some that were truly defeats, in many ways.

But one thing that held true, that always held true, across time and space and the Force, was that life went on. People lived, even while others died. They laughed, they cried. They fell in love.

Two standard days ago, the Resistance had celebrated love.

Rey was really, truly happy for her friends. Maker knew, Finn and Rose had been through enough in the months – almost two full standard years – following the battle on Crait. And watching her dear friend walk towards her other dear friend, the limp in her step no longer even noticeable, wearing the finest dress they could put together with whatever meagre resources they had, Rey felt a glimmer of happiness – of hope – for the first time in a long time. If love could prevail, even there, after all they had suffered, then maybe they weren’t fighting a losing battle after all.

They celebrated that night and well into the next morning and it felt like most of the revelers took a bit of extra time the following day to recuperate.

Rey went out regardless, as she always did. Old scavenger habits died hard. She felt as though she truly had an inability to be idle – on Jakku, idleness meant you didn’t eat. It meant you wouldn’t survive. She could not afford to be idle and now, even if it was no longer true, she continued to stay busy and make herself useful by continuing to do what she did best: scavenging.

They had taken up residence in an old rebel base from the Imperial Era, but it was so lacking in updated technology that what they had to deal with was decrepit at best and completely useless at worst. Rey, with her experience putting together decrepit and useless things and making them somewhat salvageable, proved herself to be handy once again in this area. She dug through old control panels, went into the guts of abandoned freighters, pulled out things she thought might come in handy, collected, collected, collected.

It was tiring work, hard work, but the reward – the one that came from having a place and a duty and something to do that helped – was worth it.

She wiped her sweaty brow and ineffectively scrubbed her eyes with her forearm, attempting to get under her facial mask and goggles. She truly felt like she was back on Jakku now, right down to donning protective gear reminiscent of her old scavenging uniforms. A necessity, even away from the sands and the stifling heat – she never knew what dust or sparks or shrapnel clouds awaited her when she gave a particularly hard tug or push to forcibly remove one thing or another.

As she worked, she hummed. The blasted tune played through her mind as though she were hearing it aloud once more and she felt a need to release it. She was grateful there was no one around to hear her. This was one kind of work that she always ended up doing on her own and that suited her just fine. No one had the inclination or the patience or, if she were being honest, the knowledge of spacecrafts and electronic innards that she had.

Although she was (mostly) happy with the Resistance, she remained, at heart, a solitary creature. It was difficult to unite the forcibly self-sufficient, lonely girl from Jakku with the Jedi Leader and “Spark of the Resistance”. Deep down, she was still that abandoned girl who only knew how to take care of herself and, honestly, a part of her preferred it that way. Even though now she was surrounded by people who cared for her and about her and wanted to get to know her better, she knew that sometimes alone was better. Once, she had thought that maybe it didn’t have to be that way.

But she had been wrong.

The tune continued to come unbidden from her throat as she dug deeper into the guts of a star skimmer. It had been a beautiful melody, slow and haunting, different from the upbeat refrains that had been played up until that point in the evening. They’d thought they would have to make do with no music at all until someone had recognized and dredged up an old musician droid that Rey had been able to coerce back to life with a couple spare parts and a subtle frisson of Force energy. Some laughingly complained that it was music that no one had heard since before the Battle of Yavin, but Rey thought it was wonderful, her feet moving of their own volition even as she stayed seated for the majority of the time.

Only when this one particular song had begun to play, and Finn and Rose had gravitated towards one another, as did a few others, their restraint loosened by the celebration (and the booze they’d managed to dredge up from various sources, some off-world – “If you’re going to celebrate,” Poe Dameron said, when some protested the unnecessary risk it would be to leave their base, “you might as well do it right”), only then did Rey feel something pinch in her chest. An ache that she recognized from the earliest days on Jakku, when she would think about her parents blasting away in their spaceship without her ( _a lie,_ she knew now _, all a lie_ ) and beg, in her mind, _Me, too, please. Me, too._ It was an emotion that she knew was called _yearning_. And that was what she had felt in that moment, as the song played and she saw her friends, people she knew, fall into the arms of those they loved. The feeling of, once again, sitting there and watching others from a distance and thinking, “Me, too, please.”

Her throat hitched involuntarily in the midst of her humming and she paused for a second to gather herself.

“Don’t stop.”

She gasped and tried to withdraw quickly – too quickly – from the inside of the star skimmer. She banged the back of her head twice on her way out and let out a cry each time, before stumbling backwards and tripping, landing hard on her bottom. She stared blearily through the scratched fog of her goggles at the black shadow before her. Looking up, up, up her eyes took in – not a shadow – the long, covered legs of a man. Black cloth draping down in thick folds, a cowl over broad shoulders, a hood covering hair she knew to be black, long, unruly ( _soft, so soft_ ) and extending slightly over an ominous mask, onyx and gleaming, newly constructed with nary a scratch or mark upon it.

She realized that the Force had opened her to him again without her realizing and he had been listening to her off-tune humming for Maker knew how long. Unbidden, her cheeks grew warm and she was grateful that her mask hid her face from him.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” came the modulated voice.

 _Kriff this kriffing bond_ , she thought, exasperated that nothing that she desired to be hidden remained so.

“Rey.” Was it possible for a robotic voice spoken through the amplifier of a mask to sound softer than it had previously? He repeated: “Don’t be embarrassed.”

“I’m not,” she snapped, refusing to remove her own mask and goggles. _If he wants to hide his face, why can’t I?_ She ignored the fact that the inside of the mask covering her mouth and nose made it increasingly difficult to take in air now that her breathing had accelerated in his presence. _Blast him_.

She could feel the weight of his gaze even from behind the mask. “Very well,” he responded finally. “You’re not. What song was that?”

She shrugged, petulantly, standing and dusting herself off, painfully aware of how filthy she was. “I don’t even know. They played it at – I heard it a couple of days ago.” She didn’t want him to have any more information than was necessary.

“At the Stormtrooper’s wedding,” he supplied for her. She should know he has all the information, always.

“He’s not a Stormtrooper anymore,” she replied sharply.

“I thought you would prefer I called him that.” _Rather than traitor_ , he added, silently.

She rolled her eyes and faced him, taking a step closer. “It doesn’t matter what you call him,” she said, “and it doesn’t matter what I prefer.”

“Doesn’t it?” He cocked his head slightly. His reply could have been for either of her statements and the ambiguity annoyed her. “I cared about what you preferred last time,” he added.

Now she flushed in earnest. “I should have known you’d throw that in my face,” she muttered, shaking her head and looking away.

His shoulders shook slightly as he looked away as well. Was that – was he _laughing_ at her?

“No,” he said, in response to her unspoken query. “Not laughing at you.”

“Let’s just forget about what happened last time, alright?” She sliced her hand through the air as the inside of her mask got hotter. “It was a mistake.”

He took a step closer.

“It didn’t feel like a mistake.”

Now she was sure his voice had lowered, even as it remained artificial and already deeper than normal.

They regarded each other, mask to mask.

She blinked up at him, imagining how owlish she must look in her tinted goggles. A vision of Maz flashed through her mind and she almost giggled. Hot – it was too hot – white stars sparkled in front of her eyes and she swayed—

“Damn it, Rey!” His façade of composure shattered as he grabbed her on the arm with one gloved hand and brought the other to her face, removing her mask and goggles with a sharp tug.

She took a deep, gulping breath of fresh air and allowed herself a brief moment of leaning into his supporting hand as her vision cleared. She looked up at him.

“Take that stupid thing off,” she said softly, her tongue loosened from her lingering lightheadedness.  

He regarded her for a loaded beat, before bringing his hands up and clicking the mechanisms on each side. They came unclasped with a hiss and he brought his hands up, taking the helmet with him as his hood fell back. He shook out his hair and stared at her, his face finally revealed. The helmet dropped with a dull thud, his mask joining hers on the ground. 

She devoured him with her eyes, as though seeing him for the first time, though really it had been less than two standard weeks since they – since the last time.

Same tousled black hair, tucked behind large ears ( _oh, she adored them, how she adored them_ ), soulful eyes the same colour as her morning caf, those full lips that now she knew – she knew—

She looked away.

His gloved hand came up and he placed his thumb lightly on her chin, crooking his index finger underneath and giving her a slight pinch. He leaned forward and she pulled back. He pulled back, too, and regarded her quizzically.

“No?” he questioned, confused as to why the rules had suddenly changed.

“It’s not—” She swallowed. “It’s not a good idea,” she finally managed.

He stared at her for a second, his mind a purposeful blank wall to her careful prodding, before he nodded thoughtfully. “Okay.” She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, until he spoke again: “Dance with me?”

“I—” She couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “I’m sorry, what?”

He leaned forward, tilting his face towards her, while still maintaining the amount of distance necessary to reassure her that he wasn’t going to close the gap between them. “The song you were humming earlier. I want you to think about it again. And then I want you to dance with me.”

“I can’t—we can’t—” she sputtered. “Have you gone mad?”

“Rey,” he said, soft but firm. “I saw you last night. Sitting there while the music played. Watching the dancers. Thinking of—”

“Don’t say it,” she choked out, mortified. _Kriff_. What the hell was the matter with her? Why had she lost her ability to sense when the bond between them opened up? Why was it so difficult for her to hide her emotions from him?

“I wasn’t there,” he assured her, sensing her turmoil. “I saw you, like in a vision. A waking dream. I heard the music somehow and I—” He shrugged, helplessly. “It brought me to you.”

She was speechless, her mouth working, but no sound coming out. She felt tears well in her eyes even as she cursed herself for her weakness.

“Rey.” He took another step towards her, extended his hand palm up between them. “I’m not asking you to rule the galaxy with me.” His lips quirked slightly. “Just one dance, where we can pretend our separate worlds don’t exist. Where it’s just me and just you.” She knew he could sense her flagging resolve. “Think of the song, Rey. Take my hand and think of the song.”

The first few notes of that haunting melody began to play in her head in that moment. She wasn’t sure if it was her own memory manifesting the music or if Ben’s recollection of the song was playing in her thoughts as well. Either way, she could hear it as clearly as if the musician droid was in the room with them. She looked down at his outstretched hand.

 _This is ludicrous,_ she thought.

And she took it.


	11. i. the night of // ii. the morning after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >   
>  NAD-VAA ASKED:  
> Reylo + promp 34 "you, sir, are very attractive" ! I'm a slut for smut but no smut is great too. thank you thank you!! 
> 
> AND
>
>>   
> ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> 65 pleaaaase i love ur writing its so raw and beautiful (65: You're still here...and making pancakes?)  
> 

Hi loves,

This fic has actually moved [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909606/chapters/34534748). I didn't want to delete it completely and lose some of your great comments/feedback, so this is just my way of telling you to mosey on over to the above link and check out the story in its entirety. 

Thanks for reading! 

xo kat AKA delia-pavorum AKA literaryminded


	12. regrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > lifeboldlyblows asked:  
> I was so overwhelmed with the prompts and struggled to pick one! 15 for Reylo please
> 
> The prompt (#15) is the first line of the story (for those of you who haven’t memorized my entire prompt list yet) 
> 
> Thank you [@lifeboldlyblows](http://lifeboldlyblows.tumblr.com) for being a sweet reader and for sending me this prompt. 
> 
> Thank you [@strawberrycupcakehuckleberrypie](http://strawberrycupcakehuckleberrypie.tumblr.com) & [@kitten-the-cat](http://kitten-the-cat.tumblr.com) for being my sounding board. (Check out my beautiful friend Berry's INCREDIBLE fics [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrycupcake_huckleberrypie/pseuds/strawberrycupcake_huckleberrypie)) 
> 
> Thank you brain for letting me do this in less than 1000 words (for once). 
> 
> ENJOY! 
> 
> **Tags** : The Question is Purposely Ambiguous, Choose Your Own Reylo Adventure (sort of), Rey Gives No Fucks

* * *

 

“The last time I said yes to you, a lot of people died,” she muses in response to the question he has just asked, feeling his heart beat in time with hers – a suddenly rapid, unsteady beat – from where she rests her head on his chest. Fingers play unconsciously in her hair, stroking it back from her ear.

“It was war,” he responds placidly, though she can feel the tumult of emotion that her words have wrought beneath the surface of his calm exterior.

“Still,” is her rejoinder, and his fingers quiver to a halt.

“Do you regret it?” he asks finally.

She lifts her head and rests her chin on his bare chest to look up at him. Their legs are tangled beneath the sheets and he shifts minutely, his body barely moving, while his spirit thrums in restless anxiety as he awaits her response.

“Do I regret it?” she repeats his question back to him thoughtfully, rolling it around in her mouth. Tasting it.

 _Regret_.

Did she regret, after Crait, going to him again – seeking him out in the bond – to let him know his mother was ill? Did she regret allowing him, under the cloak of darkness, to see her body where it lay in repose, after she had passed? Did she regret holding him tightly, fiercely, as the force of his grief brought them both to their knees?

Did she then regret their subsequent clandestine meetings? Their rebuilding of what had been broken on the floor of the throne room, where death and destruction had brought them to the brink, only to create a chasm between them once more? After, when they had a proposal and a plan, did she regret agreeing, finally, to join him – knowing that, for as many as they would bring together, they would also divide?

Did she regret the friends she lost, because of this decision? The invitation it relayed to cold eyes and cold hearts, where warmth and hope had once existed? Those who saw it as a betrayal and could not see it as anything less?

Did she regret that their decision to come together, to rebuild, had resulted in death? Not just the deaths of those she knew, some whom she had loved, but in the death of ideals that were too rigid, too rooted in romanticism and a misplaced longing to build a future using the blueprint of a past that could no longer exist?

Did she regret it? All of it? Any of it?

She has been quiet for a standard minute or perhaps more, her eyes staring sightlessly at his sulky mouth, lower lip in a perpetual pout for want of anywhere else to go. He lets her ruminate, no longer petting or stroking nor moving restlessly beneath her, but a different type of silence permeates. She knows it means he has shuttered up his thoughts and his emotions while she works through his question in her head.

He is entitled, of course. Just because the Force connects them in this bond, together or apart, does not mean neither has the right to the privacy of their own minds.

Still, she realizes, even the silence is telling.

Now her eyes focus on those lips. The strong nose. The chin, softly pouching as he tilts his head down to catch her eye. Those eyes, liquid honey, fathomless yet far from cold, threatening to drown her.

She feels a strong shin brush against hers and she digs cold toes into his calf muscle. He hisses out a soft breath, but cradles her closer, lifting up the sheets to tuck them more firmly around her.

“I don’t regret a minute of it,” she says, finally. “What we’ve built. How we got here. One justifies the other.”

He is placated and the bond grows warm, heavy with pleasure. He wraps his arms more tightly around her and she settles heavily on his chest, draped over him, bare skin practically fused with his.

She has almost been lulled to sleep by the once-more steady rhythm of his heart and the warmth of his body and the kajak hair-lined bedding around them, when his soft voice interrupts her.

“You never answered my question,” he reminds her. “Is it a yes?”

She lifts her head up again, sleepily narrowing her eyes as she looks down her nose at him. “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t want to rule the galaxy together platonically?”

He looks meaningfully down at her, then at their situation – naked bodies entwined under the covers – then back at her again. “Little late for that, sweetheart.” He sounds so much like his father sometimes it makes her heart ache. 

She pretends to contemplate his response for a second. “You might be right. In that case, my answer is yes.”

He startles and his hands tighten where they had been resting loosely on her body. He lifts himself up slightly. “Really?”

She can feel her eyes welling with tears, even as a half-stifled giggle erupts from her chest. _A giggle_. Sweet, merciful Maker, she is hopeless. Unable to speak, she just smiles, dimpling at his face in hers, so lovely and now so happy and hopeful and scared, and nods.

 _Yes_ , her mind and the Force whisper as well, placing her words into his head, wrapping it around his heart. _Yes._

He brings her face to his with a shaky hand at the back of her head, capturing her lips in a sweet kiss. The Force pulsates in effervescent pleasure and she breaks from him after a moment to laugh out loud, unable to hold it in any longer. Her laughter is bright and strident and conveys hope and joy all at once.

His response is to tighten his arms around her fiercely. She feels his body shudder as a word from his consciousness permeates her thoughts. She feels the weight of his relief, a galaxy of it, behind this one word repeating over and over, straight into the depths of her soul.

 _Finally_.


	13. growing up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS asked:  
> Would you consider doing 50 or 51 (or a combo) from your prompt list? Thank you for your great writing!
> 
> Thanks to my anon for the prompt and the lovely compliment (This is also dedicated to [@kitten-the-cat](https://kitten-the-cat.tumblr.com), who requested #51 as well - though I played around with the wording a bit.) 
>
>> 50\. “That’s part of being a parent, babe. You have to accept that she won’t be your little girl forever.”  
> 51\. “Are you the one that keeps blasting Disney music at 3am in the morning?”
> 
> Without further ado, I present to you some unhinged Ben Solo - father of a difficult teenage daughter (with a...familiar-sounding name). 
> 
> Enjoy and, as always, let me know what you thought!! 
> 
> **Tags** : Parental Woes, Daddy!Ben, (But Not Like That)

* * *

“ _I hate you!_ ”

The vitriolic statement echoed through the small entryway, followed by a door slamming ferociously onto its hinges, the force causing the lukewarm liquid in Rey’s tea cup to quiver.

Rey started and looked up with an exclaimed, instinctive: “Hey!” as she watched the back of her youngest daughter stride up the stairs, dark hair flowing in angry rivulets down her back, before she heard another door slam in short order.

Before she could even react, the front door swung open again and she watched as her husband stomp in, angrily slamming the beleaguered door behind him as well.

“Where is she?” he barked, glancing around the small first level of their two-story home.

“Uhhh,” Rey supplied, her eyes darting upwards briefly.

That was all the information he needed. Ben stomped up the stairs and tested the door handle of his daughter’s bedroom door. Finding it to be locked, he simply turned heel and stomped back down the stairs, then went back out the front door and into the garage.

“Ben.” Rey chased him out the door. “What the _hell_ is going—”

“Not now,” he snapped, his head half buried in his disorganized tool box, placed on top of an equally disorganized tool bench, in the midst of a hopelessly disorganized garage.

“Not now—?!” she repeated, outraged at his dismissal, hands on her hips.

He had evidently found whatever tool he was looking for and was already stalking back into the house, brushing past Rey as he singlemindedly made his way to his destination.

“You listen here, Solo.” Rey skipped to keep up with her husband’s long strides as he crossed back into the house and up the stairs. “She’s my daughter, too, and if you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, so help me—”

“ _I caught her_ —” He stopped and looked at the ceiling, as though needing to gather himself. “I caught her,” he repeated, conveying the illusion of calm, “with her _mouth_ —” Even the illusion began to fade “—on the _mouth_ of some _fucking little punk_ —” He couldn’t even get the rest of his explanation out. 

Turning to face his daughter’s bedroom, he banged with a closed fist on the locked door. “We do _not_ lock doors in this house, young lady,” he bellowed. “Open up or so help me I will take this goddamn thing _off its hinges!_ ”

“GO _AWAY_!” came the screamed reply.

Now it was Rey’s turn to look at the ceiling. Admittedly, no child of her or Ben stood a chance when it came to avoiding the stubbornness gene. But Kyla, with her honey-dark eyes and raven locks and ears that stuck out ever-so-slightly (the mere mention of which was punishable by death in their household now that she had turned fifteen) seemed to have truly gotten the brunt of Ben’s obstinate and aggressive genetic makeup. She was, in fact, a veritable mini-Ben in female form, perfectly formulated in a way to drive her father absolutely insane.

Their other two kids - sweet, mild-mannered Hannah, and Lucas, the baby of the family, with a sense of humour befitting a thirty-five-year-old more than his ten-year-old self - had yet to give them the amount of grief (combined) that Kyla had. More than just stubborn, she had an uncanny level of intelligence -  bordering on genius, when applied properly - and a mercurial nature that separated her slightly from the rest of the family. Ever since she was a baby, her defiance, her spirit, and her temper had been pronounced and difficult to ignore.

Case in point: rather than appreciating the precariousness of her situation when dealing with a father who _also_ had been known to sport a temper, she instead chose to stoke the flames.

As a result, Ben was currently methodically removing the hinge pins of his daughter’s bedroom door.

“Ben,” Rey said firmly, placing a hand on his forearm in an attempt to stay him. “Can you stop this? You’re acting insane.”

“You would be insane, too, if you saw what I saw,” he grumbled, attempting to use the flat head of a screwdriver to pry the hinge pin out.  

“What did you see, babe?” Rey spoke calmly, soothingly, subtly prying the screwdriver out of his hands. “Was she just kissing Matt goodbye after school or was it something else…?”

“Matt?” Her husband whirled on her. “ _Who_ is _Matt_?”

“ _Yes_ , mom, of course it was Matt!” came a disembodied voice from the other side of the door. “And dad _humiliated_ me in front of _the entire school_!” The voice ended in a shrill note, clearly deeply distressed (as only a fifteen-year-old suffering a perceived humiliation could be). 

“Oh, Ben.” Rey tsked, turning on her husband. “What did you do?”

“ _Who the fuck is Matt?”_ Ben boomed, repeating his question. “Why am I the last to know _everything_?” he added, throwing his hands up in the air.

Rey gave him a warning look. “Matt is a boy that Kyla has Geometry with. They went to the movies with a group of friends last week. They’ve studied together before. I’ll let Kyla explain the rest to you.”

“ _I’m not explaining ANYTHING!”_ came the shriek. “He lost that privilege when—”

“Kyla!” Two fed-up parents barked the name simultaneously. The response was blessed silence.

Rey sighed heavily. “This is just part of being a parent, babe,” she said finally, looking at her husband with compassion as she saw the anger drain away and dejection replace it. “She’s not going to be your little girl forever.”

He huffed out a humourless breath, bracing his arm against the doorframe. “I just thought I had more time, damn it. Hannah didn’t get into this shit until just this past year.”

Rey shot her husband a perplexed look. “Ben, Hannah _never_ got into boys,” she said, in reference to their eldest daughter’s well-known sexual orientation.

“I know,” he responded, as though it were obvious. “It was great. Boys are garbage.” He tilted his head back and crossed his arms wearily. “And fifteen is too damn young, Rey, come on…”

Rey couldn’t help but laugh slightly as she shook her head. “She’s home every night, you still pick her up every day after school, we see her on weekends and when she goes out, we know exactly where she is - what more do you want, exactly, Solo?” She crossed her arms back at him, an imitation of his pose. “Disney songs at three AM, again?” she added, a reminder of their youngest daughter’s propensity, during a two-year Disney obsession when she was Lucas’s age, to play the music from her favourite movies at all hours of the day and night.

“Yes,” was the belligerent reply.

Now she did laugh out loud, going over and giving her disgruntled husband a hug. “Oh, daddy,” she sighed, giving him a cheeky grin. “I know it’s tough watching your littlest girl grow up.” She rubbed his back affectionately. “Is there anything I can do to make it better?”

He narrowed his eyes at her and quirked a smile, dimple showing. Even after twenty-five years of marriage, that damn smile still made her knees weak.

“I can think of one thing,” he replied, looking thoughtful.

“Anything,” she responded sincerely, pressing herself tighter against him. He wrapped his arms around her back and coasted his hand to her bottom, giving it a little squeeze. Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek and then moved his mouth to her ear, causing her to shiver involuntarily.

“Call me daddy again.”

  


Kyla Solo heard her mother shriek and her father’s booming laughter, even through the music playing in her headphones. She rolled her eyes, though begrudging amusement coloured the gesture.

 _Idiots,_ she thought affectionately, turning up the volume.


	14. electives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> #38 + university enemies turned lovers AU please!
> 
> Thanks for the request, anon! This prompt was actually somewhere in the middle of the current request list that I’m working through, but the idea came to me and I had to just get it all out before I lost it. Also, in the end (despite the specificity of the request) they weren’t exactly enemies and they don’t quite reach lovers, but—well, just read it.  
> 
> And enjoy! 
> 
> **Dedicated to** : my love, [raven_maiden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_maiden/pseuds/raven_maiden) and her hubby, for ~reasons~ 
> 
> **Tags** : TA/Student dynamics, Drunk-dialing, WE ARE A PRO-OXFORD COMMA FAMILY

* * *

The buzzing woke her up.

It was incessant, like a mosquito flying around her ear. Or drilling into her brain.

With an audible groan, Rey threw her arm out towards her bedside table, hitting a (luckily empty) glass of water, her eight-dollar IKEA lamp, and a small dish of loose change, before grasping the instrument of torture that had awoken her from what she assumed was only her third hour of sleep. Glancing at the time as she clicked her screen, she confirmed that this was, indeed, the case.

Groaning again, she blearily focused on the message preview that assaulted her senses as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of her dorm room. In her periphery, she could see Rose shifting in her bed, before letting out a soft snore and continuing her slumber. Lucky bitch.

_You want to explain the drunk voicemail you left me last night?_

Rey did a double take and peered more closely at the message before glancing up at the name.

Ben History.

_Ben? History? Ben Hist— Fucking TA BEN?_

“Oh, my godddd.” Her third groan of the morning turned into a long, drawn-out, verbalized moan as she died a little inside.

Fucking TA Ben.

Professor Snoke’s assistant from her Russian History elective last semester and - she was convinced - the reason she passed that course. Though, admittedly, it’s not as if he had outwardly shown any sort of inclination or preference towards her in any way.

Not in tutorial, when he looked down his nose at whatever question she asked and answered with a barely stifled sigh preceding any dialogue.

Not in class, and particularly not when Professor Snoke had reamed her out in front of the entire lecture hall for falling asleep with her head in her hand (thank you job number two, the night shift at the university pub) and he had just sat there in the corner, barely adjusting his glasses as he read over papers.

And not outside of class, where she never saw him. Ever.

No, it was a fact. Mr. Solo AKA Ben History AKA TA Ben was a dick. For all intents and purposes, he had never for even a second belied anything less than purely professional - and for the most part barely cursory - interest in her.

Except for her papers.

Ben Solo was a notoriously hard marker. Rose and Finn had devised the idea of taking Russian History, instead of the more popular Sociology courses, the previous year (yeah, Rey was late on the uptake with her humanities electives, _what of it_ ) and had subsequently bitched about TA and professor both; but Rey, always up for a challenge (some may call it pigheaded, willfully ignorant, inability to learn from her mistakes or the mistakes of others—) decided to give it a shot, too. Just to prove she could.

Ha.

Twenty-page research papers on the rise of Moscow, the destruction of the Soviet Union, the Cold War. End notes, works cited, bloody footnotes to her footnotes. It had been pure torture. But she had worked her ass off on each and every one and, in the end, had reaped the benefits.

Er, somewhat. While her peers were receiving grades of Cs and lower, she was coming out with Bs and the occasional B+. The comments were standard, mostly critical: arguments she could have improved on, syntax issues, exclusion of the Oxford comma (who bloody _cared_ about the Oxford fucking comma), and so on. But then, in the end, the same line every time, scrawled in a haphazard cursive, the letters flowing together in a pleasingly desultory way:

_A pleasure to read._

Those four words _did something_ to her. She, who could count the kind words she’d received in her lifetime on her fingers and toes with socks on, who had always been the kid that nobody expected much of, who had always - at most - gotten a blinking, surprised: “Oh. Well done.” when she had accomplished anything in an above-average way, had felt a little sparkle of pleasure every time she got the bottom of the last page and saw that line.

And, since her childhood abandonment issues all but guaranteed a fucked up, overcompensatory response to anyone who showed her even a modicum of attention or kindness, she had obviously developed a monster crush.

In short, Ben Solo had ended up being the one good part of a shitty class. He marked her fairly and, as a bonus, was nice to look at and listen to and imagine all the filthy things she’d like to—

Oh god. _Oh god_. What had the voicemail said?

With shaky hands, she opened up the message and read it over again five times.

Drunk voicemail. _Drunk voicemail_.

 _Why couldn’t she remember calling him_? All TAs had their phone numbers at the top of the syllabus along with their email address and office hours, but as far as she knew, nobody had actually _called one_. At the beginning of the semester, around the time she had gotten her first paper back from him, she had plugged the number into her phone - _just in case_ \- giving him the surname History to denote her association with him (the same way fellow contacts were Rose Roomie, BFFinn, and The Douchebag, a friend-by-association that Finn had recently become infatuated with).

As to why she couldn’t remember calling him—

The answer, if her pounding head wasn’t enough evidence, manifested further as Rose loudly snored again and rolled over, smacking her lips together and mumbling to herself.

They had gotten _wasted_ last night. End of semester finals plus “We’re losing Finn to Poe” blues plus impromptu Girls’ Night plus plus plus, and she had ended up puking in the garbage cans outside their building while Rose cheered her from behind like garbage can puking was an Olympic event and Rey was on her way to a gold medal. (Which, for the record, she would have won).

She must have made the call at some point during the later part of the evening, but before the vomiting, when she was already three Jagerbombs deep, plus countless tequila shots and some whipped cream monstrosity called a blow job or a muff dive or some other, equally vulgar and heinous name–

Practically frozen in terror, she scrolled through her recent calls.

Fuuuuuck.

Sure enough, right at the top. Ben History _._ Three- no _four_ times _dear god._ At 3:06, 3:07, 3:10, and 3:22 (ah, yes, Rey, a twelve-minute gap. Make him work for it, as they say.)

Did she leave four voicemails? Just the one? Somewhere in between? What did they say? _What did they say?_

“Kill me,” she prayed to the ceiling. “Please. Just do it. Kill me now so I don’t have to deal with this, ever, in my godforsaken life.”

 _I’ll do you one better,_ God responded, probably, because instead of being struck by lighting, a call came through.

 _Ben History_.

She laughed mirthlessly up at the ceiling - _still maintaining your track record with me, eh ol’ boy. Glad some things don’t change_ \- before scowling as she looked down at the name on her buzzing phone. _Might as well get this shit over with._

She rushed out into the hallway to answer so she wouldn’t wake-up Rose. The corridor was completely empty - it was only just past seven A.M. after all and it’s not as if her and Rose were the only college students on campus who had the bright idea of drinking to celebrate the end of Finals - and Rey answered as she continued to walk through the dead hallway and out the door.

“Hi,” she said, mournfully. Too late for pretences now, anyway.

“Oh.” The responding deep voice sent an inadvertent shiver through her body. “I actually wasn’t expecting you to be awake.”

“Yeah.” Rey stepped out into the cool, misty April morning air, briefly regretting her decision to not grab a sweater as goosebumps rose up on her bare arms and legs. “Your, er, text woke me up.” _The panic and humiliation spiral immediately afterwards also helped shake off the remnants of sleep. I may never sleep again, in fact._

“Right. Well, I thought you’d want to know—”

“Listen,” Rey cut him off, partially for fear of whatever he had to say and partially to say her own piece before he could verbally eviscerate her and/or threaten her scholarship and the progression of her degree or whatever else happened to errant, drunken students who called their former TAs and left explicit voicemails. “I’m sorry I called you and said all that shit, I was completely wasted. I know it was wildly inappropriate. And it’s not like—” _Fuck, what are some of the insane things I probably said?_ “—I mean, you’re obviously very attractive and tall and built and I mean, yeah, you’ve got unbelievably good shoulders and I’m sure I brought up the fantasy of you carrying me in your arms shirtless, but the truth is—”

“Rey.”

Her name out of his mouth brought her up short. In tutorial she had been—what, Ms. Johnson? Or usually just nothing. A nod or “yes, you” in the general vicinity of where she was sitting. _He knew her name?_

“You know my name?” _Smooth._

An abbreviated sigh. Ah, yes. If there were ever any doubt as to who was on the other end of the line, this telltale moderation of his annoyance eliminated it completely.

“I know your name,” he confirmed. “And the voicemail you left me didn’t say anything about my—“ A pause. “—shoulders.” Another pause. Rey’s skin began to get that prickly feeling that usually preceded the wash of utter mortification coursing through one’s body. “In fact, you barely said anything at all. After I picked up my phone the fourth time it started ringing at three A.M.—” _Ah, yes, hello humiliation, my old friend,_ she thought at the liquid heat spreading through her limbs, “—at first all I could hear was indecipherable yelling and then someone loudly singing the chorus of ‘Living on a Prayer’.”

“Oh, _god._ ” Her horror manifested in the loudest groan conceivable at this revelation. Pieces of the night were starting to filter in now, penetrating the haze of her hangover- and humiliation-induced migraine.

“I almost hung up, but then you came on the line. Initially I couldn’t understand you, but then you said something about me being the bright spot to a shitty class and how you loved being my pleasure—”

Rey hiccuped in despair. Why couldn’t she have just talked about his shoulders?

“—Which I didn’t quite understand. But then you said—” He paused again, almost as though he needed to gather his thoughts, and Rey held her breath at the infinite possibilities of self-inflicted degradation that were to come, “—you moved to a quieter area and you said thank you to me for making you feel worthy. You said it felt nice to know that your efforts weren’t for nothing.”

 _Cool._ Cool cool cool. They still had engineering programs in Siberia, right? She wondered if her scholarship was transferable. _Fuck it. I’ll just move to Florida. Maybe a crocodile will eat me._

Grasping at straws, Rey responded, “You know, I actually don’t remember any of that. I think maybe I didn’t call you at all. Maybe it was my friend Rose playing a prank or—”

He cut her off: “At the end you said ‘by the way, this is Rey Johnson.” _Fuck._ “And, regardless, I recognized your voice.”

_Hey, now. He did?_

“You did?” _Uggghh._

Silence.

“Okay, er,” Rey began as the silence stretched out to unbearable lengths, “well. It is true that I liked your comments - your final comment, always - on my papers. It is also true that I like your shoulders. I’m not sure who told you anything about carrying me shirtless—”

“You said that.”

“Regardless of how these rumours get spread,” she continued through gritted teeth, “I sincerely apologize for calling you at such an obscene time, er, repeatedly, and also for assaulting your ears with Bon Jovi and the drunken ramblings of a psychologically-damaged pseudo-adult—”

“I liked your papers, Rey,” Ben interrupted and, for the first time, he sounded a bit - thawed. Unsure. Not warm, exactly, but not really holding back either. “You were the only one who got that comment at the end and I meant it. That course is—I mean, it’s two hundred-level, but with no prerequisite and we get a lot - _a lot_ \- of students who just couldn’t give a shit. And I know History isn’t your program and that you probably just took it to fill an elective, but I—” A pause and an inhale. Then: “I’m glad you did.”

Rey thankfully stopped herself just short of responding “ _You are_?” and instead, a little breathlessly, answered: “Me, too.”

“Your efforts weren’t for nothing,” he added, quietly. “Not to me.”

“Oh, Ben.” It was the first time she had said his name out loud and she heard his breath catch slightly.

“Where are you right now?” he asked, his voice a touch hoarse.

“Uhh…” She looked around at the outside of her building, noting ruefully the garbage can that likely still held her vomit. “I’m just outside my dorm. In my pajamas.” She involuntarily shivered as she once again became aware of the damp coolness of the morning air, now that the steam of mortification had waned a bit.

He clucked lightly under his breath, mother-henning ever so slightly, and the warmth came back. “It’s cool out, you should get dressed. And then maybe—” He broke off.

“And then maybe what?” she breathed, feeling her cheeks flush.

“Well, you’re still a student, but I’m not your TA anymore and technically I’m a student, too, although I’m much - like a lot - older, but maybe—”

“But maybe what?” she urged, unable to stop the smile from splitting her face.

“Maybe we can grab a coffee or something?” he finished in a rush. “We don’t have to talk about Russian History.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Rey deadpanned.

Ben huffed out a laugh. “In fact, let’s talk about anything but Russia.”

“Or Bon Jovi,” Rey added, chagrined.

“Or my shoulders.”

“Hey, now,” Rey protested. “Let’s not be too hasty.” He let out a genuine laugh and she couldn’t help but laugh in return.

“So.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “What do you say? Is it a date?”

“Oh, Mr. Solo.” She grinned back at him, hoped he could hear it, too, loud and clear. “It would be my pleasure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](delia-pavorum.tumblr.com) and submit your own prompt request from my list (or make up your own!)


	15. to be certain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops something was here and now it’s not

Yet another case of a disappearing story. Sometimes fics just gain a life of their own and deserve a spot outside of the prompt anthology. This fic has actually moved [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15703908). As with i. the night of/ii. the morning after (which became [One-Night Stand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909606/chapters/34534748)), I didn't want to delete it completely and lose some of your great comments/feedback.

Feel free to check it out in its new home at the above link. :) 

Thanks, as always, for reading! 

xo kat AKA delia-pavorum AKA literaryminded


	16. untitled (spira)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I did it again. My need for validation knows no bounds.

Spira has a new home [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654903).

You’ve probably read this spiel a couple times already (if you’re following along in sequence… if not, check out Chapters 15 and 11 to get caught up), so I won’t re-write it. What I will do is try and promise to be better organized in the future and, if I want to keep prompts outside of the anthology, _not post them in here to begin with_. Should be easy. Let’s see how it goes. 

Thanks for reading and putting up with my nonsense! 

xo kat AKA delia-pavorum AKA literaryminded


	17. the box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is meant to encapsulate the following prompts from my [prompt list](https://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com/post/175013803551/update-08162018-hello-an-update-for-you-this):
> 
> #6: “If I survive, will you marry me?”  
>  #12: “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”  
>  #81. "Fight me."  
>  #85. "I hate you and your cute face" 
> 
> Which were submitted by the lovely [NewerConstellations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewerConstellations/pseuds/NewerConstellations) and [NancyLovesReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nancylovesreylo/pseuds/nancylovesreylo) ages ago. 
> 
> I don't really know what happened here: I feel like it's one part crack-fic, one part smut, one part fluff, and one part Schrödinger. In other words, it's...really strange. 
> 
> Well, enjoy! 
> 
> **Tags** : Come for the Reylo Stay For the Quantum Physics Analogies, F*ck Buddies, Inappropriate Use of Phasma

* * *

“So, is it just fucking or what?”

Rey choked on her swallow of gin, spluttered, sprayed just a bit, and then started coughing vigorously.

“I—” _Nope_. More coughing necessary. “I beg—” She cleared her throat forcefully. “I beg your _pardon_?” Her nose and throat burned, her light pink sundress had a splatter mark down the front, she was still coughing, and she looked at her dear friend Rose as though another head had sprung from her shoulders, fully formed.

“This thing. With you and Ben. Is it fucking? Or is it more than that?” Rose rested her (thankfully singular) head in her hand and peered back at Rey assessingly, tapping her fingers on her chin. She was drunk – they all were – and she was notorious for being an emotionless drunk, forthright and honest to a fault. Already she had been speaking too loudly and motioning aggressively between Rey sitting in front of her and Ben, several metres away, standing at the bar waiting to order another pitcher of beer for the table and another gin and tonic for Rey.

“Shhhh, shh- _shh_.” Rey’s shushing got more vicious as it progressed and she frantically made downward swooping _for-fuck’s-sake-be-discreet_ motions with her hands. “He’s going to hear you, Rose, Jesus Christ.”

“So? What are you afraid of?” Ah, yes, heartless, drunken Rose was in full swing. “If it’s just fucking and he knows it and you know it, it doesn’t matter if I say it’s just fucking, right?”

“It matters in the grand scheme of human dignity and appropriate public behaviour,” Rey replied through gritted teeth, surreptitiously peeking over her shoulder to make sure Ben was still far away. He had started talking to Finn, who had also made his way over to the bar – thank god. “Anyway, we don’t talk about it.”

Rose leaned forward, eyebrow raised over her thick-rimmed black frames. “What do you mean you ‘don’t talk about it’? You guys have had feelings for each other since forever and you’re _finally_ doing something about it and you’re just—what—? Pretending like it’s not happening unless he has his di—”

 _“Rose!_ ” Rey hissed, looking behind her again. “Shut. Up!”

“I just don’t understand—”

“It’s like—” Rey flailed for a minute, fingers tapping her palms as she searched for a way to explain. “Oh—it’s like Schrödinger, okay?” That shut her up. Rey watched as the righteous indignation fizzled out of her friend, to be replaced by utter confusion.

“Schrö— _what_?” Rose leaned back in her seat and squinted back at Rey through her glasses. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Rey sighed, exasperated, and took one last glance over her shoulder. Still at the bar. Good.

“Okay, Schrödinger’s cat. Do you know about this?” At Rose’s head shake, Rey continued. “It has to do with quantum physics— _listen_ , just listen for a second,” she added quickly, when Rose groaned loudly and slumped out of her chair, “it was a _way to explain_ quantum physics, but I’m not going to get into the physics part. Basically, it’s like this. You put a cat in a box with some food, or whatever, that’s been poisoned. And then you close the box.”

“Poor kitty.” Rose had sat upright again and now pouted.

“Stay with me,” Rey insisted, as she began to warm up to her own explanation. “Cat, box, poison. Box closed. As long as that cat is in the box and the box remains closed and – this is the important part – _no one opens the box_ , then the cat is both alive and dead. It can be either—you don’t know, no one does. But as soon as the box is opened, it becomes one or the other. It _has_ to be defined as _something_. Do you see?” Rey held out her hands triumphantly and looked at her friend expectantly.

Rose stared at her for a beat. Then: “—the fuck, Rey?”

Rey groaned. “I’m _saying_ ,” she stressed, “right now, Ben and I – we’re the cat! Whatever is happening with us right now is in a closed box. When you open the box, you have to answer for what’s _in_ the box – dating, feelings, fucking, whatever. When the box is closed, you don’t have to answer for shit.” Rey leaned forward and pointed her finger in Rose’s face. “Don’t fucking open the box, Rose. If you open the box, the cat is dead. And it’s all your fault.”

Rose blinked twice. “Shit, Rey.”

“Seriously. Keep me and Ben in the box where we belong. It’s better that way. No questions, no explanations, no emotions. Just a cat in a box, having a grand old time.” Rey took another gulp of her drink as she smirked, keeping an eye on her friend to gauge her reaction.

Rose had broken eye contact, though, and seemed to be focusing on something just over her shoulder. Suddenly, her eyes widened perceptibly and she swallowed hard before glancing quickly back at Rey.

 _Fuuuuuck._ “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

A deep voice intoned from just over her shoulder: “Is one of us supposed to be a cat in this scenario?”

Rey whirled around. Ben was standing there, of course, towering over her – _god_ , so fucking tall, especially as she sat in her chair – a pitcher of beer in one hand and the drink for her in the other, an inscrutable expression on his face.

“Ben!” Rey exclaimed, unsure how to respond. “Er, Rose and I were just talking about—”

“Schrödinger,” he said calmly, putting the drinks on the table. “I know. I heard.”

“Umm…” She opened and closed her mouth for several seconds. “Is that—”

“They didn’t have anymore Miller on tap so I got Stella. Hope everyone’s okay with that?” Ben cut her off to address the rest of the table – Rose across from them, Poe who had just come back from the washroom, and Finn coming up behind Ben.

“Aw, man,” groused Poe, mainly just to be a shit disturber as he slid into the booth. Ben looked at him witheringly.

“Stella’s fine!” Rose piped up, suddenly accommodating, glancing back and forth between Rey and Ben like she was watching a tennis match. Or a lit stick of dynamite being tossed between two people.

 _The last two minutes must have sobered her up_ , Rey thought, irritably.

“Here’s your gin and tonic,” Ben said quietly, just to her, as he slid it across the table.

“Thank you,” she replied, just as quietly, accepting it. “You know,” she added suddenly, “that stuff, what I was saying to Rose, that was just—”

“It’s fine, Rey,” he responded in a normal tone, already straightening and making his way to the other side of the table, towards the booth where Poe was sitting.

She nodded, noting glumly that before he had gone to the bar he had been sitting next to her; a seat that Finn now slid into instead.

The conversation from that point forward was stilted, the happy buzz Rey had been experiencing prior all but fizzled. Poe and Finn were the only two who seemed blissfully ignorant to the underlying tension at the table as they chatted over two or three more drinks. Ben remained quiet, even for him, as he nursed his single glass the entire time, contributing to the conversation only when he was directly addressed.

For their parts, Rose and Rey kept up a steady stream of chatter, but both of them kept glancing at Ben and then at each other, exchanging chagrined and, for Rey, increasingly nervous looks.

After another half hour, Ben stood and made an excuse about an early morning, before saying his goodbyes and leaving. He had addressed the group as a whole, not sparing Rey a nod or even a glance separate from the rest.

Her heart settled into her stomach like a rock.

“Rey…?” Rose inquired, quietly. “Are you—”

“Who wants tequila shots?” Rey cut her off, addressing the group to the resounding cheers of Finn and Poe. With grim determination, she ignored Rose’s concerned look, got up and made her way towards the bar.

* * *

Countless tequila shots in the half hour following Ben’s departure had led her out of the bar, despite the cries of protest from her friends, and into an Uber – ordered and paid for, Rey assumed, by one of the protesting friends. At the last second, she requested an address change from the driver and instead of taking her home he brought her in front of her current location. She slammed the car door and looked up at the building.

“Stupid, uncommunicative Ben Solo,” she muttered as she wove her way towards Ben’s low-rise. “How’s a person s’posed to know you’re not s’posed to call them a dead cat in a box…?” _Or that maybe it actually is more than just fucking?_ “Shut up.”

She reached the front doors and leaned, with all her weight centred in her pointer finger, onto the buzzer for his apartment.

“Jesus Chri— _yes_? _Yes_?” came his sharp reply through the garbled speaker.

“How’s a person supposed to know, Ben?” she yelled into the speaker.

A pause. Then: “Rey?”

She hiccuped. “Like…fuck, man.” Suddenly exhausted, she rested her head on the cool metal of the tenant list.

A buzz indicated that the door had unlocked and Rey wearily let herself in and then trudged the three flights of stairs up to Ben’s place. She stood outside his door and knocked aggressively, her hand rapping on air as he swung it open seconds later.

“Jesus, Rey, what’s up?” he asked, visibly flustered, running a hand through his hair. He was still wearing his clothes from the bar – faded jeans and a simple white pocket tee – and her stomach clenched at the familiar sight of him.

“I just—” she started, then stopped suddenly as something caught her attention in the corner of her eye. Looking over, her jaw dropped.

There, at Ben’s kitchen table, was an unfamiliar, statuesque blonde. Her bejeaned legs were crossed as she sat back in his chair – my _fucking seat_ , Rey thought viciously – a beer in her hand. Though she wore little makeup, her blue, bedroom eyes and the natural pout of her lips were striking, her pale blonde hair cut stylishly short and casually tossed to the side in an off-centre part. She looked like a model, even just sitting there in jeans.

Slowly Rey turned to look at Ben, who was staring at her expectantly, still waiting for her to finish her sentence.

“So,” she said, acidly, “this is how it’s going to have to be, then?”

It was Ben’s turn to look surprised. “Pardon?”

Turning back to the blonde — who was watching the scene with a tiny upward tilt to her mouth, eyes twinkling in amusement — Rey said, determinedly, “Right. Get up.”

“Me?” the blonde asked, pointing to herself, still appearing to be stifling her amusement.

Rey tore off her jean jacket and threw it on the floor. “That’s right. Get up. You want him? You’re going to have to fight me for him.”

Now the blonde genuinely looked shocked, all trace of amusement gone from her expression. “I’m sorry—what?”

“Rey,” Ben warned. 

“You heard me,” Rey snarled, ignoring Ben, and impressed that she was able to keep her voice from trembling. “You can’t have him. Fight me.”

The blonde exchanged a swift look with Ben, as if to say “Is she for real?” and then unfolded her long legs, standing up from her seat.

Rey looked up. And up. And up some more.

Ben’s new girlfriend was a _giant_. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. She glanced over at Ben, who was staring up at the ceiling with his hand rubbing his jaw and covering his mouth. She caught a glance of the dimple in his right cheek and her heart skipped a bit.

No. This was something she had to do. Even if she was going to be throttled doing it.

Looking around frantically, she caught sight of the umbrella he kept in its holder by the front door. Leaping for it, she grabbed it and in one swift motion brought it to the throat of this living, modern-day manifestation of Norse Mythology standing in Ben’s kitchen.

“Whoa—!” Ben cried out as the woman jumped back a startled pace, hands up in a surrender position.

Rey glanced at Ben and her lip trembled slightly. “If I survive,” her voice cracked, “will you marry me?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s enough—” He snatched the umbrella out of Rey’s hand and tossed it back in the basket at the front door. “How much did you drink?” he asked, incredulously, before turning to the blonde Norse giantess. “Phas. Please—as you can see—” He gestured helplessly towards Rey, who didn’t know what to do with her hands now that they were bereft of umbrella, so she clenched them into fists in front of her chest.

“Er, yes, say no more.” “Phas” smiled, in a surprisingly genial manner for someone who just had an umbrella to her throat. She continued to hold her hands up as she sidled by them. “Nice meeting you, Rey,” she tossed over her shoulder as she left the apartment.

“ _That’s Rey to you_!” Rey shouted back angrily at the empty doorway, hands on hips. “Hey.” A thought brought her suddenly upright. “She knew my name.”

“Phas—Ellie Phasma, she’s my landlord, Rey. She came by after her shift to see about that leak in my kitchen faucet and I offered her a beer. That’s all.” He ran his hands through his hair and puffed out a breath. He seemed to be attempting to gather his thoughts, then finally settled on: “What the hell was _that_?”

“I—” Rey shrugged helplessly, tequila and bravado draining from her system at the same pace, leaving her with only embarrassment and shame. “I thought maybe you had—brought her home. That you were with her.”

He shook his head and let out a disbelieving laugh. “And if I had?”

Rey’s eyes filled with angry tears. “You can’t just—you can’t just have sex with someone else! You’re having sex with _me_.”

“No rules, Rey, remember,” Ben said, his voice borderline-callous. “That was _your_ line, right from the beginning. Not mine.”

“Yes, but—” _But I_ knew _you wouldn’t be with anyone else_. “Forget it.”

“And if I had been trying to have sex with her?” he pressed. “What then? Why would you even care?” he asked. If he had been attempting to keep the bitter note out of his voice, he failed.

“Ben.” Her voice wobbled. She was always shit at keeping her emotions below the surface, but never more than when she was wasted. If Rose was a stone-cold drunk, Rey was thawed. Mush. “I care. I do. I care a whole lot.”

“Well—” He was clearly warring with himself, pacing and sighing agitatedly, looking like he was deciding how much to reveal. “That’s just not what it sounded like.” His jaw worked as he paused to stare at her, pent-up emotion in his eyes. “If we’re going to define this thing, let’s do it right here and right now. If it’s just—just _fucking_ , then let’s say it and be done with it.”

“Ben,” Rey whispered, tears leaking from her eyes. “Don’t do this. Don’t go this way.”

He looked at her bewildered. “What the fuck are you talking about? Go _what_ way?”

“ _This_!” she exclaimed, unhelpfully. He stared at her and she attempted to elaborate. “Needing to—to put labels on things. Can’t it just be a good thing? Can’t we just leave it at that?”

“No.” He crossed his arms and glared at her. “We can’t. We can’t just leave it ‘at that’. I need more than that, Rey. I’m sorry.” The fight drained from him and he sat wearily on the back of his couch. “And if you can’t—”

“I love you,” she blurted out, then clasped her hand over her mouth. _Oh, my god. What did you do?_

His eyes widened as he became very, very still. “You—what?”

Her face crumpled and she looked down. _Well, fuck_. She shook her head. “I tried not to,” she choked out. “But I just couldn’t help myself.”

He was silent for an agonizing eternity, then all at once he was up and in front of her in two strides, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her against him, lips seeking and finding hers immediately.

She sobbed in relief against his mouth and wrapped her arms around his neck. His tongue swept into her mouth and she kissed him back fiercely, digging her hands into his hair.

He brought his hands up and under her bare thighs, lifting her fully into his arms, pressing her against him tighter.

“I have loved you—” he murmured between searing kisses, “—for ages.”

“I know.” And she did. She may not have admitted it to herself until that moment, but Ben’s love had been an enduring presence in her life for what felt like forever. Something that propped her up. Something she could rely on.

The thought of him – his steady bearing, his constancy – caused her eyes to well with tears again ( _stupid tequila_ , she thought, weepily) and she squeezed him tighter in her arms and between her legs.

He moaned at the pressure and walked with her until her back hit the wall. “Rey—” Her name from his lips, his voice rough and even deeper than normal, sounded like a question and a plea.

“Yes,” she whispered in response to his unspoken question. “ _Yes._ ”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed, propping her up with one arm under her ass and unbuckling his jeans with the other.

She carded her hands through his hair, forcing his head up to look at her. “ _Yes_. Right here, like this. Please, Ben,” she ended on a moan, rolling her head back against the wall and grinding her pelvis against his, underwear directly hitting his hand on the zipper of his jeans. She wasn’t a dress girl normally, but had wanted to look cute tonight, and thank the good lord for that. The pink-checkered, linen shift was knee-length and simple and – most importantly –  _convenient_.

His jeans fell to his knees and she reached down into his shorts to grab hold of him, giving him a few rough strokes. He tilted forward and his forehead hit the wall with a ragged groan. She shimmied her dress up, while he moved her underwear to the side. He stroked her a few times and his fingers slipped through her folds.

“Jesus, Rey, you’re always so wet for me,” he breathed on a groan, flicking her clit with his pointer finger.

“Please,” Rey gasped, writhing in his arms.

Notching the tip of his cock into her entrance, he braced his hands on either side of her, holding her up, fingers digging into her ass and hips. He looked up at her and their eyes met.

“Okay?” he whispered, voice barely audible, looking at her like a man drowning.

She bit her lip, hard, and nodded. “Yes. Yes. _Please_.”  

With a groan, he pushed home.

* * *

Later, they lay tangled in his bed. Her dress was somewhere in his hallway, mixed up with his jeans. The rest of their clothing had been scattered elsewhere en route to their final destination. Naked, they quietly rested, blankets on the floor, Rey with her head on Ben’s chest and leg thrown over his, Ben with his arm wrapped around her, lips brushing her hairline softly.

Eventually, he spoke.

“You and your fucking self-preservation bullshit,” he chided softly, without any antagonism to his tone. “Fucking Schrödinger. Jesus. We’re not all your parents, Rey. Not everyone is going to leave you.”

She nodded, sleepily. “It’s hard,” she admitted.

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Yeah. I know.” He propped himself up slightly to stare at her gently and her face turned up towards his, watching as his gaze trailed over her. He shook his head, laughing softly, almost to himself.  “I hate you and your cute face,” he muttered finally, kissing her nose. “I really do.” He kissed her lips and her nose again, before settling back into the bed and cradling her close once more.

She giggled quietly, glancing up at him as she drew loops on his stomach with her finger. “So. Did we open the box?”

He grinned down at her, lopsided and lovely. “I guess we did. Happy with what you found?”

She looked back at him, smiling softly, her dimples pressed deeply into her cheeks. “Very.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come say hi!](http://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com)


	18. different paths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > ANONYMOUS SAID:  
> HELLO FRIEND! Hope you're doing well. I saw your post re prompts, and may I pls request --> (31) “I never stood a chance, did I?” or (6) “If I survive, will you marry me?” whether it be angsty, fluffy and smutty and just everything in between these space idiots & I adore your writing whatever you do
> 
> For this sweet anon. Since I just recently did a prompt with #6 in it, I decided to do #31 for this one. I could have taken it a Damer/ey or Finn/rey route, but.... well, I decided to be _way_ more confusing about it, instead. 
> 
> Thanks to my love [Raven](http://raven-maiden.tumblr.com) for always being my extra set of eyes (and extra brain more often than not)

* * *

Rey awoke with a start.

She stayed very still, kept her breathing steady and even, and allowed her eyes to adjust to her surroundings. An image slowly began to form. Sleek black flooring underneath her cheek, giving way to crimson walls cloaked in a cascading material, except for the areas with gaping wounds that revealed yet more inky darkness beneath. Sparks softly crackling down, like shooting stars from dying wires.

It took a minute for her to piece together the transient memory of what this place was, exactly; this place that had haunted her before, in daydreams and nightmares alike.

“You’re up.”

The deep, dry voice echoed through the cavernous space.

She sat up slowly, bracing her hands on the floor —noting her arm bands, a fresh gash on her upper arm, cracked and bleeding knuckles — as she leveraged her weight from her arms to her knees. Once she was fully upright, resting on her haunches, she turned her head.

And there he was.

Sitting on a familiar sable throne, large and imposing, the darkness appearing to merge with the shadows. His casual pose belied the ostentatious setting as he sat with his elbow bent and head resting on closed fist, regarding her sullenly. The rebuffed prince.

His hair hung in lank strands over his eyes and ears, curling at the ends. Sweat still apparent on his brow and in the tang of the air.

She looked around, but saw no evidence of the carnage that had been wrought there, no red plastoid corpses or the butchered remains of a twisted malefactor. 

“You’re not real,” she realized, her voice sounding over-loud to her ears.

He ignored this and continued to watch her, eyes narrowed and assessing. She attempted to probe his mind to get an idea of what he was thinking, but her abilities failed her, so his next words took her by surprise.

“I never stood a chance, did I?” He braced his hands on the onyx stone and stood, walking heavily, purposefully, towards her.

She scrambled to stand up as he approached. “I—you—” She fumbled over her response, unsure of what to say. How much to admit. “It wasn’t an easy decision.”

He nodded slowly, though she wasn’t sure if it was in agreement with her assessment or not, and looked around at their surroundings briefly, as though stalling to measure out his next words properly. He squinted and pursed his lips, letting out a sharp exhale through his nose before he eventually spoke again.

“I would have given you everything,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Whatever you wanted. The entire galaxy, at your fingertips.” His eyes briefly flickered with an emotion reminiscent of melancholy; a nostalgia for a past that didn’t exist or the dashed hopes of a future that would never come to be. Almost immediately, his expression shuttered, then grew cold. “But you chose a different path.”

She crossed her arms now, staring at him intently. “A different path chose me,” she answered, finally.

He scoffed and looked away. “What a sickeningly Jedi response.”

She shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

Leveling a glare at her, he asked, “And was it worth it, then? Is it better — the life you chose over the one I could have given you?”

She held his gaze for a long moment, considering his question. “It’s…different,” she said eventually. “It’s hard to define better or worse. But if you’re asking, in your own way, if I’m happy—the answer is yes.”

Her answer didn’t appear to surprise him, though it did affect him. She saw it in the way he folded his lips on a sigh, jaw working, mouth trembling slightly. He nodded and looked away again.

“It worked out for you, too, you know,” she said softly. “Ultimately.”

His expression remained neutral. “Did it?” he asked lightly, as though the answer was irrelevant, though his eyes spoke a different story.

She had a hard time keeping her emotions in check, swallowing hard past a lump in her throat. “I think so,” she managed, her voice no louder than a whisper.

He gave a short nod, his throat working. “If you say so,” he responded, his own voice quiet and slightly hoarse.

“Ben—” she started, taking a step towards him.

He took a step back. “Don’t. I’m not him.” He met her woeful stare with one of his own, his dark eyes catching the glow of the sparks as they continued to fall around them. “Not anymore.”

Rey awoke with a start.

She inhaled sharply, eyes adjusting to the pale light filtering softly into the room. Her bedroom. She exhaled shakily, relieved, and lay very still for a moment, taking deep breaths in an attempt to regulate her pounding heart. Scrubbing at her face, she felt the remnants of tears on her cheeks. She’d had dreams like that before, but this time it had felt more vivid than others. Sadder.

Sighing heavily, she turned her head and reached out a hand, seeking comfort.

A familiar figure lay beside her, his dark hair shorter now and his form boasting a few extra scars. His face was older, although it still appeared young, soft, in sleep - sulky mouth open slightly, hand tucked under the pillow beneath his cheek. 

She tentatively made contact, reveling in the ability to reach out and touch him, softly stroking his hair back from his forehead with light fingertips, before settling her head onto his shoulder. He tightened his arms around her and sleepily brushed a kiss to her forehead.

“Bad dreams?” he rasped softly, half-asleep.

She thought of the apparition she had just encountered, the one who had yet to understand the man he would become. Or what the future held for him. She snuggled deeper into his arms.

“No,” she answered honestly. “Not anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CANT COMMIT TO ANGST. #sorrynotsorry
> 
> [Follow me](http://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com) for more moderately angsty (mostly fluffy, often smutty) drabbles and ficlets and other reylo nonsense


	19. degrees of pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >   
>  ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> NSFW “Was that supposed to hurt?” ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> **Tags** : Virginity loss

* * *

_Was that supposed to hurt?_

The thought floats through her mind as the loading door of the Millennium Falcon closes with a definitive thunk.

She feels an ache, heavy and solemn in her chest, as she swallows hard and turns away – away from Crait, from Ben Solo and Kylo Ren, away from the memories of her failure – and looks toward her new path and the people she has saved and is now bound to take care of. She takes a single, heavy step further into the freighter towards her destiny.

 

“Was that supposed to hurt?” she taunts on a snarl, taking a bit longer to stand up than she would have liked.

She ignores the stricken look on his face and the throbbing in her shoulder and rises fully, poised to attack.

The beam of his lightsaber droops slightly as though in a loosening grip, no longer battle-ready, and he doesn’t move. Just continues to stare, all the colour drained from his face which now glows an eerie white, bathed in red from his plasma blade. Following his gaze, she looks down and sees a crimson bloom appear on the light fabric of her long cloth, getting larger the longer she stares.

 _I thought lightsabers cauterized wounds_ , she thinks faintly, feeling lightheaded. She hears the whoosh of an extinguishing laser and heavy footsteps moving quickly towards her as her knees find the ground once more.

 

“Was that supposed to hurt?” she wonders in a tremulous whisper after a beat of stunned and reverent silence has passed. Her body feels frozen, tense, a sharp and aching throb in her core.

He pants softly above her, a giant mass of trembling, corded muscle, his arms braced on either side of her, quivering with exertion.

He shakes his head, locks of hair falling over his brow. “If it did,” he whispers finally, his voice as unsteady as hers, “it will be the last time I ever hurt you.” He kisses the corner of her eye and she is surprised to suddenly feel the tear she didn’t realize was there, smudged by his mouth.

Leaning down further, he kisses her lips and she tastes the salty wetness.

He pulls out slightly and her mouth opens on a silent gasp, feeling relief and emptiness in equal measure, and this time his lips find the scar on her shoulder, the one that matches his, now. He lingers there for a moment and she feels his regret like a bitter taste on her tongue, still raw and fresh.

She pulls him up to her, into her again, kissing him and forgiving him for the hundredth time. This time, when he’s fully seated within her and she breaks her mouth from his, her gasp is audible as she feels him without the pain of the first time.

Instead there is only pleasure; hers and his, too, and she can feel it within each of them, giving and taking, permeating the very air around them. Her hips rise to meet his on a sigh and a whimper from both their lips. She holds him tightly, pressing his chest against hers, wrapping her legs around his waist. She brings her lips to his ears.

“I wouldn’t give back any of the hurts,” she promises quietly as he trembles in her arms, “that brought us here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['sup?](http://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com)


	20. veritas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to a weird ask I got in my askbox on tumblr, from an anon who appeared to be lost.
>
>> ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> it's really funny how you think kyle saying anything to rey is with love
> 
> Lol k. Just know, dear anon, you brought this onto yourself.

* * *

“You’re a monster,” she snaps at him, eyes narrowed, teeth clenched, body quivering with rage. The angry crashing of the waves on the cliffs around her appear to reflect her swirling emotions.

“Yes, I am.” _I love you_ , he thinks, the words coming unbidden even to his own mind. But it’s true. Her fierceness and her loyalty. Her strength and her vulnerability. He saw it on Takodana and in Starkiller Base and his admiration has only continued to grow since then.

 

“You’re not alone.” _I love you_ , he thinks, watching her cold form shiver slightly, her thin blanket and the weight of disappointment doing nothing to keep her warm.

“Neither are you,” she whispers, the conviction loud even in her quiet words.

He watches, swallowing hard, as her steady hand extends towards his. He fumbles to remove his glove, to have this moment, this feeling with her and within the Force, to see who they were truly meant to be. Together.

Shakily, his bare hand reaches for hers.

 

“Please.” _I love you_ , he thinks, hand extended to her for the second time, steadier now but with no less emotion behind it. He loathes how he is reduced to begging in his last attempt to sway her to his side. Showing her this glimpse of his own internal weakness disgusts him, but fear of losing her trumps any fear of being vulnerable.

“Don’t do this, Ben. Please don’t go this way.” He can feel her anguish radiating around them, knows that this anguish means her decision has already been made. He feels his heart begin to harden as he tries to prepare for yet another person to turn their back on him.

 

 _I_ _love you_. Even he is shocked when the words come to him as he crouches in the debris of the filthy abandoned rebel base on Crait. He can feel the weight of his father’s dice in his hands, matching the heaviness of his heart, the traitorous organ still beating despite all the times he’s willed it to stop. He can see her ushering her friends onto the ship that had once almost been his destiny, can see as she prepares to close the door on him.

Their eyes catch.

_I know._

He feels the breath leave him in a surprised exhale.

She holds his gaze, sadness and determination evident in equal measure, as the ramp lifts all the way up and she is sealed off from him. He’s about to stand up, straighten, behave like the Supreme Leader he is supposed to be, when the words come to him again. This time from an external source, not just the pathetic reflections of his own consciousness.

_I love you, too._

Despite all he has lost and all the work yet to come, despite the fact that it’s not an answer or forgiveness or an absolution, he finds the corners of his mouth softening ever so slightly.

If the Stormtroopers wonder why their new Supreme Leader is standing by himself in a dilapidated control room, fist clenched in the air, a soft smile on his face, they wisely say nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Oh, hi](http://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com)


	21. five-sentence prompts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A collection within a collection.
> 
> This chapter contained all the Five–Sentence Prompt Fills I completed on Twitter, which you can now find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902552/chapters/39707763)!

[Five–Sentence Fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902552/chapters/39707763)

Oops, I did it again (turned a chapter into a whole other work) 

xo delia


	22. groundhog day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was borne from the following exchange between an anon ask and the lovely [kylorenvevo](http://kylorenvevo.tumblr.com) aka [diasterisms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diasterisms/pseuds/diasterisms):
>
>> anonymous asked:  
> i guess the only way to make this better is to write a reylo family fic where ben and rey are the exhausted parents of tiny little daughters and they're so tired that the idea of having another child does the opposite of turn them on
>> 
>> [kylorenvevo](http://kylorenvevo.tumblr.com/) answered:  
>  Omg… someone please write this. Belated birthday gift for me??? Pls pls pls
> 
> So, I went ahead and wrote the story. Happy belated birthday, Thea!

* * *

“Is she down?” Ben asked quietly, collapsing onto the bed beside his wife who was lying on top of the covers, fully clothed, her eyes closed.

Rey murmured her assent with a slight nod. “What about the little one?” she mumbled, eyes still closed, already half-asleep.

“She’s out,” Ben confirmed, closing his eyes as well.

The exhausted parents let out simultaneous sighs of relief and quietly lay side by side for a beat.

“What time is it?” Rey finally asked, rolling over onto her side and burrowing her face deeper into the duvet.

Ben let out a jaw-cracking yawn. “Let me see.” He shuffled his hand over the bedside table, looking for his phone. Accidentally, he knocked it down onto the floor, where it landed with a silence-shattering clatter.

They both froze, staying completely still for several heartbeats, not even breathing as they waited to hear which daughter - _dear god, please not both_ \- would wake up from the sound. After a full minute had passed in miraculous silence, Rey let out a semi-hysterical breath of laughter.

“I can’t believe that didn’t wake either of them up,” she whispered, still unconvinced that a baby’s cry or a toddler’s wail wasn’t going to pierce the evening’s reverie.

Ben, who had remained as still as a statue until that moment, finally released a breath. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, reaching down to pick up the phone off the floor. He illuminated the screen, checking the time. “Wow,” he said. “Seven-thirty.”

“Seven–” Rey spluttered. “Seven-thirty? That’s _it_? I thought it was at _least_ eleven o’clock.”

Ben groaned rubbing his eyes. “Same. I thought for sure bathtime was going into its third hour by the time we pulled them out.”

“Fuck,” Rey moaned, draping a hand over her head. “I still need to mop up that monsoon in the bathroom.”

“I did it already,” Ben mumbled, already face-down on the comforter.

“Oh my god.” Rey draped her body on top of his. “Bless you. What about the dishes from dinner?”

Ben cracked an eye open to give her a disparaging look.

She gave him a saucy grin, eyes still half-closed. “Thought I’d ask.”

He bumped her body with his by giving a little upward thrust, jolting her almost completely off of him.

“Hey!” she exclaimed softly, clambering back up his body. “This is my spot.” She lay sprawled across his back, toes scrabbling at his calf muscles, her forehead resting in the soft hair at the nape of his neck.

“Mmm,” he murmured in agreement. After a minute, he turned slowly, wrapping his arm around her when he got to his side, drawing her forward so she slid until their bodies were facing each other, chest to chest.

“ _Mmm_ ,” she murmured back a moment later, her voice rising an octave in interest as her pelvis wiggled against his and she felt a familiar hardness there. “Hullo. I thought you were tired…?”

“I’m tired,” he agreed, eyes still closed. “Not dead.”

She giggled softly, placing gentle, open-mouthed kisses against his neck. He groaned quietly, tilting his head to give her better access, palming and squeezing her round bottom in his hands.

With an arch of her back, she languidly sat up and stretched, then reached down to lift her shirt up over her head. His hands immediately gravitated towards her bare breasts and kneaded them gently, appreciating their postpartum heft now that she’d put on a few pounds from the birth of their second.

She moaned and arched again, pressing herself further into his palms, his hands engulfing her, as she slowly slid back and forth over him.

He panted softly underneath her, hands moving downward to grab at her hips and press her down further onto his hardness. “Take off your pants,” he rasped.

“Grab a condom,” she said, motioning to the bedside table.

He opened the drawer and reached in one-handed, moving his hand around for several seconds before pulling out an empty box. “Fuck!”

Her eyes widened. “Ohhh, no. No no no. Sorry, mister.” She unstraddled him and scooted away towards the other side of the bed. “No can do.”

“Rey,” he moaned in a half-plea. “Come on…”

“Nope,” she said firmly. “My IUD appointment is in two days. Not taking any chances until then.”

“Come on,” he tried again, cajolingly. “Would it be so bad if we had another one?”

“Benjamin Solo.” She leveled him with a narrow-eyed glare. “We haven’t slept a full night in three years. I’m constantly covered in formula, purées, rice cracker dust, and those little puffy stars. Hannah just learned how to walk, like, yesterday and Kyla can barely roll over. If we have another one, that baby will be the same age difference with Kyla as she is with Hannah. It’s like that fucking Bill Murray movie - just when you think the day is over, it starts _right back the fuck up again._ ” She was practically hyperventilating at this point. “I’m not living Bill Murray’s life, Ben! I can’t do it!”

“Okay, okay, shhh.” He drew her closer to him, palming the back of her head until it rested on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t actually want another one. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She let out a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to live Bill Murray’s life either,” he agreed solemnly. “Listen. We’ll survive two days. Or I’ll go buy condoms tomorrow. For tonight, how about we just eat Fritos and watch Netflix?”

“Yes, please,” came her relieved moan. “Unironic Netflix and chill is perfect.”

“Okay.” He kissed the top of her head and disentangled himself from her. He went to get up, but Rey stopped him.

“Whoa, whoa, where do you think you’re going, big guy?”

He looked at her quizzically. “But you said—?”

“Ben.” She gave him an affectionate look from under her lashes that very clearly said both _you idiot_ and _my idiot_ simultaneously. “I promise that, whatever we spend the next fifteen-ish minutes doing, there’s _no_ chance I’ll get pregnant from it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you saw this on tumblr originally, you may have noticed that I changed one of the baby's names from Avery to Kyla. This is a nod to one of my other fics in this anthology, ["growing up"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553363/chapters/33626979) or chapter 13. It made me giggle to think about what Ben and Rey may have in store about fifteen years after this fic takes place, so I basically just did it for my own amusement. (It also answers the question of whether or not they go for that third!)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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